












* ^ 





^ :*£<i£\ v/ /^ter-, *<^ 





c5» ^\ 




EARLIEST DAYS 



IN 



AMEEICA 



BLANCHE E. HAZARD 

EDITED BY 

SAMUEL T. DUTTON 



ILLUSTRATED 




New York 
THE MORSE COMPAN 

1897 




WO COPIES RECEIVED 



•H 



Copyright, 1897, 
By SAMUEL T. DUTTON. 

All rights reserved. 



Entmed at Stationkbs' Hall, Londom. 



GLADLY AND GRATEFULLY 

DEDICATED 

TO 

Blbert JBusbnell 1bart t 

WHOSE INTEREST IN STUDENTS OP 

AMERICAN HISTORY 

EXTENDS FROM HIS CLASSES AT 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

TO THE YOUNG CHILDREN FOR WHOM 

THIS BOOK IS INTENDED. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



Most children like to hear stories of the boy- 
hood of great men in whom they become inter- 
ested, and eagerly lead the story-teller back to 
the earliest years of their hero's life. 

It is hoped that these stories of the "Earliest 
Days in America " will awaken a similar inter- 
est in the early years of onr country and its 
people. 

Young readers like to feel, also, that they are 
reading "real, true stories." Here are gathered 
true stories, not of one man, but of hundreds who 
settled this great country where my little Ameri- 
can readers live to-day. 

Blanche E. Hazard. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The attempts made by the author of this vol- 
ume to give young people a knowledge of the 
life and habits of early men and women upon this 
continent, as well as of the beginnings of our 
history, cannot fail of being appreciated. 

Facts about primitive men have been the too 
exclusive possession of antiquarians, and too little 
has been written for young readers about those 
who lived and struggled in the early days. 

It is believed that parents who desire to intro- 
duce their children to history at an early age will 
welcome this volume. It is intended as a partial 
solution of the question, "What kind of history is 
adapted to boys and girls? 7 ' 

The care and fidelity of the author are seen 
upon every page, and will be recognized by all 
who are familiar with this field of study. 

Samuel T. Dutton. 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Abinos, of Indians 66 

Adze (illustrated) 21 

Albany, founded by the Dutch . 234-235 

Named by English 247 

Antiquarians, careful work of 11 

Ideas concerning glacial 

men : 21,22 

Ideas concerning shell-heaps. . 29 

Antiquities, discovery of 11 

Arizona, Cliff Dwellers in 44 

Arrow head, found in mounds 36 

(see chipped implements) 

Axe, use of by Glacial Men 20, 21 

Use of by Mound-builders — 36 

Balboa 127 

Baltimore, Lord, attempts colony 

at Avalon 162 

Instructions to colonists 163 

Deposed 165 

Bi-ans-wah, story of 71, 72 

Blackstone, John 205 

Blaxton (see Blackstone). 
Boston, capital of Massachusetts 

Bay colony 193, 202, 206 

Early names of 205-206 

Fortification of 206-208 

Map of 207 

Prosperity of 215-217 

Bradford, Wm., ruling elder. . .169, 177 

Journal of 179-183, 186-187, 190 

Brewster, Win., Puritan elder. 172, 174 

Brooklyn 235 

Burial mounds, description of .34, 41-42 

Contents of 34-35, 39 

Cabot, John, birth of 113 

Theories of 113 

Sets sail March, 1497 114 

Relations of, to Henry VII. . . 114 

Landfall of 114 

Second voyage of 116 

Cambridge 202, 220, 221 

Cannonicus 225 

Cape Cod, reached by Pilgrims.177,179 

Explored by Pilgrims 180-183 

Carolina (see North Carolina and 

South Carolina). 
Cartier, Jacques, settlements at- 
tempted by 126, 127 

Carver, John 174-175, 177, 190 

Cathay, search for by way of the 

West 93 

Cave Men, Time of 30 

Possibly descendants of Mid- 
den men 31 



PAGE 

Caves used as dwellings 30 

Contents of 30-31 

Salt Cave of Kentucky 31 

Central America, early migra- 
tions from 53-55 

Visited by Columbus 109 

Champlain, settlements made by. 126 

Charlestown, founding of 202 

Charlton (see Charlestown). 

Chipped Implements, location (il- 
lustrated) 12 

Of prehistoric people 13 

Found in glacial deposits 19-20 

Made by man 20 

(Illustrated) 20, 21, 25 

Uses of 21 

Use of (illustrated) 25 

Of Indians 77 

Cliff Dwellers, habitation of 44, 46 

Habitsof 46,47 

Ancestors of 53-55 

Cliff Dwellings, location of 46 

As cities of refuge 46 

Description of 46 

Coddington, William 225,227 

Collections in museums of prehis- 
toric implements 13 

Largest and finest 13 

Explained by custodians 13 

Colorado, Cliff Dwellers in 44 

Colonists, Spanish 99-106, 128 

French 126-127 

English 129,138 

Dutch 230,251 

Swedish 251 

Columbus, Christopher, birth of . . 96 

Education of 96 

Among books 96 

Great aim of 96-97 

Helped by Ferdinand and Is- 
abella 96-97 

Diego, son of 97 

Making preparations at Palos 97 
Helped by Pinzon brothers ... 97 

Ships of 97 

Sets sail August 3, 1492 97 

First voyage of 98 

First landfall of 90 

Builds Fort La Navidad 99 

Letter to Santangel 99-101 

Received at Spanish court ... 101 

Second voyage of 104 

Sets sail September, 1494, ... . 104 
Builds the town Isabella 104 



IX 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Columbus, treatment of savages. 104 

Blamed by colonists 106 

Third voyage of 107 

Sets sail May, 1498 107 

Touches mainland of South 

America 107 

Sent to Spain in chains 107 

Petitions to the king 107 

Fourth voyage of 109 

Sets sail May, 1502 109 

Touches the coast of Central 

America 109 

In deep distress 109-110 

Death of, in 1506 110 

Character of Ill 

Significance of the discover- 
ies of. 111,127 

Connecticut, colony of 220, 221 

Coronado 127 

Cortez 127,128 

Cotton, John 206, 224 

Cuba, discovered bj r Columbus. . . 99 
Dale, Sir Thomas, High Marshal 

of Virginia 149 

Makes strict laws 150 

" Dale's Code " 150 

Dare, Virginia 138-139 

Davenport, John 222 

De la War, Gov 148-149 

Delaware 251 

Dishes (see Pottery). 

Dorchester 202, 220, 221 

Drake 128 

Drift, left by glaciers 17 

Scattered over country 17 

(Illustrated) 18 

Dutch, in Connecticut 220 

Claim to discovery of the re- 
gion of the Hudson 231-233 

Relation with the Indians 240 

Indian attacks on 241-242 

Conquest of, by English. . . .246, 251 

In Pennsylvania 257 

Dutch East India Company send 

out Hudson 230-231 

Dutch West India Company char- 
tered 234 

Send out colonists 235 

Letter of P. Schagen to. . . .236-237 
Establish Patroon system. ... 237 
Receive complaint from colo- 
nists 242-243 

Called to account by Dutch 

government 243 

Duty-boy, in Virginia 158 

East Indian trade in Europe, influ- 
ence of crusades upon 90-92 

Destroyed by Turks 92 

Search for western passage in 

order to continue 93 

Eaton, Theophilus 222, 223 



PAGE 

Endicott, John, leadership of . .196-197 

Finns 257 

Fire- buckets 8-10 

Florida, shell-heaps in 28-29 

Fort Orange (see Albany). 

Fox, George 254, 255 

Freemen, in Massachusetts 200-201 

Free-willers 157 

Friends (see Quakers). 

Frobisher 128 

Frosty Stone, story of 22-27 

Genoa, birthplace of Columbus. . . 96 

Birthplace of John Cabot 113 

Geography, early ideas of 89-90 

St udied by Columbus 96 

Of America in 16th century. . . 121 

Germans 257 

Gilbert 128, 138 

Glacial age, climate of 14 

Conditions of, existing in Alas- 
ka and Greenland to-day. . . 14 

A story about 22-27 

Glacier Men, name of earliest peo- 
ple..... 14 

Tools of 19 

Life of 20 

Occupat ions of 20 

Flee from advancing ice-sheet 21 

Original home of 21 

History of 21 

Descendants of , . 22 

Glaciers, formation of 14 

(Illustrated) 15 

Extent of 16 

Motion of 16 

Pathof 16 

Deposits made by '. 16-17 

Dissolution of 17 

Gloucester 217 

Gravel banks, cut through for 

railroads 12 

Guanahani, Discovered by Co- 
lumbus 99 

Guilford 222 

Hakluyt, Richard 128, 135 

Hartford 221 

Hawkins 128 

Hayti (see Hispaniola). 

Higginson, Francis 198 

Hispaniola, discovered and named 

by Columbus 99 

Described by Columbus 101 

Mining in 104 

Hudson, Henry, explorations for 

the Dutch 

Hutchinson, Anne 225 

Ice Age, The (see Glacial Age). 

Ice Boy, The 22-27 

Indiana, mounds of 32 

Indians, origin of name 14 

Pueblo (see Pueblo Indians). 



INDEX. 



XI 



PAGE 

Indians, discovery of 56 

Other names of 56 

Ancestors of 56 

Influence of Europeans upon. 56-57 
59,80 

Trading by 57 

Manufactures of 57 

Primitive customs of 57 

Appearance of 58-62 

Dress of 58-62 

Dress of (illustrated) 61 

Kinship of 63 

Villages of 64 

Customs of. .64, 67, 69; 72, 73, 77, 78, 
81, 82, 83, 84-85, 87-88 

Wigwams of 64-66, 85 

Village of (illustrated) 65 

Abinos of 66 

Children of 69-75 

Games of 71, 80-82 

Characteristics of 71 

Love for children of 71-72 

Education of 73-78, 82-83 

Quintans of 75 

Canoes of 77 

Weapons of 77 

Hunting and fishing by. . .77-78, 86 

Food of 78-80, 81 

As warriors 82-83-84 

Enlisting of 82 

War-dances of 83-84 

On the war-path 84-85 

Head-dress of 85 

Girls and women 85 

Agriculture of 85 

Pottery of 86-87 

Embroidery of 86-87 

Burials of 87-88 

Welcome Columbus and the 

Pioneers 106 

111 treated by colonists.106, 130-134 

Raid Jamestown 148 

Massacre Virginia colonists. . .160 

Welcome the Pilgrims 188 

Taught to plant Indian corn. . 189 
Relations with Roger Williams 224 
Relations with Coddington.225-227 

Relations with Dutch 240 

Attack the Dutch 241-240 

Treatment bv Penn. . .256-257,260- 
261 

Interpretation of Feuds, imperma- 

nency of 14 

Jamestown, settlement of 140 

Government of 141 

Common-store system of 142 

Trouble at 142, 143, 146 

Indian name of 145 

Reinforced 146-147, 184 

Change in government 147 

Condition of 148 



PAGE 

Jamestown, abandonment of com- 
mon-store system 149, 155 

Ruin of 160 

Jersey City 235, 241 

Josselyn, John 228 

Kentucky, mounds of 32 

Salt Cave in 31 

Kieft, Governor. . . * 244 

Knife, made of slate by Mound- 
builders 37 

La Navidad, fort built by Colum- 
bus 99 

Found in ruins 104 

Long Island, English settlers upon 244 

Dutch settlements upon 248 

Description of 248-249 

Lyford, John 190-191 

Maine, described by Josselyn . .228-229 

Settlement of 229 

Union with Massachusetts . . . 229 

Mammoths, name of 19 

Skeletons of, found near gla- 
ciers 19 

(Illustrated) 19 

Manhattan, origin of name 233 

Settlement of 234-235 

Purchase of 236 

Government of 235 

Marblehead 217 

Maryland, origin of name 163 

Granted to Lord Baltimore. . . 163 
Religious toleration in... .164-165 

Mason, John 228 

Massachusetts, attractions in.. 210-211 

Commerce of 215-227 

Departure of colonists from . . 

220-221 
Massachusetts Bay Company, 

chartered 196 

Servants of 197 

Growth of 199-202 

Massachusetts Bay Company, 
Transfer of government to 

America 200-201 

Dependence of civil rights 

upon Religious views 204 

Refusal to surrender charter. 

218-219 

Massasoit, visit of 188 

Treaty with the Pilgrims 189 

Maverick, Samuel 205 

Meadford (see Medford). 

Medford 202 

Merchant - Adventurers, Pilgrims 

sent by 175 

Laborers sent by 177 

End of business relations with 

Pilgrims 191 

Mesa, description of 49 

Mey, Cornelius Jacobson 235 

Miantinoma 225 



Xll 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Midden-men, The, origin of name. 28 

Time of 30 

Possible ancestors of Cave 

Men 31 

Contemporaries 44 

Ancestors of 53-55 

Middens, where found 28 

Contents of 43 

Middie Pitt, story of 40-33 

Milford 222 

Minnit, Peter 235 

Missouri, Mounds of 32 

Moraines, Medial (illustrated) 15 

Formation of 16 

(Illustrated) 18 

Mortar and pestle, found in 

mounds 37 

Public ; in boulders 38 

Mound-builders, time of 32 

Descendants of 40 

Child of, a 40 

Food of 43 

Contemporaries of 44 

Ancestors of 53-55 

Mounds, cut through for railroads 12 

Location of 32 

Hidden by forests 32 

Great Serpent (illustrated) ... 32 

Discovery of 32 

Preservation of 32 

Shapes of 32 

Uses of 34 

Opened in sections 32 

Discovery of 40 

Mound village, a description of.. 34 

(Illustrated) 35 

Diagram of 41 

Fortification of 42 

Mount Wollaston 205 

Nantasket 205 

Naumkeag (see Salem). 

Netherlands, Pilgrims in 173 

New Amsterdam, settlement 236 

Growth of 238-239,247 

Religious liberty in 238 

Indian raids upon 241-242 

Condition in 1647 245 

Conquest of by the English. . . 246 

Named by the English 247 

Description of 249 

Commercial relations with 

New Engiand 250 

Return to Dutch rule 250 

New Hampshire, settlement of .227-228 

New Haven, settlement of 222 

Government of 222 

A commercial colony 223 

New Jersey 251 

New Mexico, Cliff Dwellers in 44 

New Netherlands, attractions of.. 

231,233-234 



PAGE 

New Netherlands, patroonships in 237 

Suffers from Indian raids 242 

Conquest of by English 246 

Named by English 247 

Return to Dutch rule 250 

Newport 227 

Newport, Capt 141, 145, 147 

Newtown (see Cambridge). 
New York City (see New Amster- 
dam. 

Nichols, Col 247 

Noddle's Island 205 

Norumbega, ideas of 121 

Norsemen, meaning of the name 

Viking 112 

Home of 112 

Early voyages of 112-113 

North Carolina, earliest settle- 
ment in 165 

Granted by Charles II 166 

Settlers of 166 

Trouble in 166 

Ohio, ancient earthworks in 32, 35 

Oholasc, an Indian queen 60-62 

Oldham, John 190-191 

Painting, of Indians 62 

Patroon system 237 

Penn, William, secured grant of 

" lower counties " 251 

English surroundings of. . . .253-255 

Land scheme of 256 

Treatment of Indians 256-257, 

260-261 

Arrival in America 258-259 

Troubles of 261-262 

Pennsylvania, granted and 

named 255-256 

Emigration to 256, 259 

Native resources of 259-260 

Character of settlers 260 

Made a royal province 262 

Philadelphia, " Quaker City "..257, 262 

Laying out of 258 

Rapid growth of 250 

Schools of 260 

Pilgrims, early home at Scrooby. 169 

Religious views 170 

Hard times in Holland 171-172 

Ask for help 174 

Origin of name 176 

Leave Holland 176 

Land near Cape Cod 177 

Signed the " Mayflower Com- 
pact 1 ' 177 

. Landing of 185 

First visit from Indians 188 

Privations of the first winter. 190 

Second company of 190 

End of common-store system. 191 
Co-partnership, notice of.. 191-192 
Special mission of 193 



INDEX. 



Xlll 



PAGE 

Pioneers (see Christopher Colum- 
bus). 
(See Norsemen). 
(See John Cabot). 
Attracted to New World. . . 120, 122 

Achievements of 127 

Motives of 135, 136, 137 

At Salem 196 

In Connecticut 220-223 

In Rhode Island 223-227 

Dutch 230-239 

Pizarro 127, 128 

Playthings of glacier child 25 

Of Mould-builders 1 children.. 41 -43 

Of Pueblos 53 

Of Indians 71-73 

Plymouth, site of 184 

Origin of name 184 

Chosen by exploring party 

from Mayflower 484-185 

Laying out of 185-186-187 

Growth of 193 

Incorporated in Massachu- 
setts colony 193 

Pocahuntas, Story of her visit to 

Jamestown 151-154 

Becomes Ladj^ Rebecca 154 

Polished stone implements, where 

found 22 

Of the Mound-builders, de- 
scribed 36-37 

Uses described 36-37 

Portsmouth, settlement of 225-227 

Pottery, soapstone, found in 

mounds 38 

Clay, found in mounds 38 

Found by farmers 39 

Decorated by Mound - build- 
ers 39-40 

Of Mound-builders (illustrat- 
ed) 42-43 

Of the Pueblos 49 

Baking of Pueblos 52-53 

Comparison of primitive 55 

Of Indians 57, 87 

Powhatan, storehouse of 67-68 

Friendliness 143, 151 

Kindness to Captain John 

Smith 145-146 

Reconciliation of 151-154 

Prehistoric Springtime, effects on 

glaciers 17 

Life during 19 

Prisoner Servants, in Virginia. 158-159 

Providence, founding of 223-224 

Pueblo Indians, ancestors of 50 

Deterioration of 50 

Spanish influence upon 50-51 

Religion of 51-53, 127 

Pueblos, habitation of 47 

Origin of name 47 



PAGE 

Pueblos, dwellings of 47-49 

Time of 47 

Descendants of 47 

Village of (illustrated) . 48 

Government of 49 

Life of 50 

Pottery of 50 

Ancestors of 53-55 

Puritans, religious views of... 170, 

195, 198, 203-204, 217 

Persecution of 195 

Charter of 196 

Congregational church of.. 203-204 
Dependence of civil rights 

upon religious views of 204 

Early writings of 209-210 

Quakers, persecution of, in New 

England 205 

In New Jersey and Delaware. 251 

Religious views of 253-254-255 

Settlements of 255 

Quintans, of Indians 75-77 

(Illustrated) 76 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, English colo- 
nies sent by 138 

Redemptioners 157, 238 

Religion of the Mound-builders. . . 42 

Of the Pueblos 51-52, 127 

Discovery for the sake of .122, 132 
Introduced among Indians — 135 
Puritan 169-171, 203-204, 217 

Rhode Island, settlement upon . . . 

225, 227 
Purchased from Indians. ..225-227 

Roanoke Island, settlement at de- 
stroyed 138-139 

Robinson, John, minister of Pil- 
grims 170, 174 

Death of 193 

Rocksbury (see Roxbury). 

Roughstone Men (see Glacial Men) 

Roxbury 202 

Salem, pioneers at 196-197 

Church at 197-199 

Troubles at 199-200, 224 

Salt Cave of Kentucky, descrip- 
tion of 31 

Contents of 31 

Samoset 188 

San Salvador, discovered and 

named by Columbus 99 

Santangel, letter of Columbus to. 99 

Schagen, Peter, letter of 236-23J* 

Scotch-Irish 257 

Sea of Darkness, ideas about 93-95 

(Illustrated) 94 

Separatists, religious views 170 

Persecuted in England 171 

Flight of, to Holland 171 

Condition of, in Amsterdam 
and Leyden 171-172-173 



XIV 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Separatists ask for help 174 

Sent to America by merchant 

adventurers 175 

Serpent Mound Park (Illustrated) 33 

Shawmut 205 

Shell-heaps, where found 28 

(Illustrated) 29 

Description of 28 

Contents of 29-30 

Age of 29-30 

Slavery, introduced into Virginia 156 

Smith, Capt. John, disciplined 141 

Made president 143 

Relations with Indians 144-145 

Character of 143-144 

Visits Powhatan 145-146 

Departure of 148 

In Massachusetts Bay 184 

South Carolina, earliest settle- 
ment in 165 

Granted by Charles II 166 

Settlement at Charlestown. . . 166 

Settlers of 166 

Trouble in 166 

Spaniards among the Pueblos 50-51 

Conquer Mexico, Peru, and 

Brazil 118 

As colonists under Colum- 
bus 99-106 

Relations with the Dutch. .231-233 
Squanto, Relations with Pilgrims. 189 

Stamford 222 

Standish, Myles, friend of Pil- 
grims 172, 177 

Chosen captain 187 

St. Augustine, settled by Span- 
iards 128 

Stuyvesant, Peter 245,246 

Swedes 251, 257 

Tattooing of Indians 62-63 

Tennessee, mound villages in 41 

Tihus description of 53 

Tools (see implements). 

Totems, use of 63-64 

(Illustrated) 63 

Turf Hut, A (Illustrated) 23 

Description of 24-25 

Threatened bv ice-sheet 26-27 

Utah, Cliff Dwellers in 44 

Van Twiller, Wouter 244 



PAGE 

Venice, early merchant sailors 

of 93 

Early home of John Cabot. .. 113 

Verrazano, early life of 124 

Commissioned by Francis I . . 125 
Touches North American 

coast 125 

Description of America 126 

Vespucci, Amerigo, birth of 117 

Interest of, in Columbus 117 

Touches South America 117 

Fame of 118 

New World named for him. 118, 127 

Virginia in 1618 60 

Indian name of 67 

English name of 138 

Settlement by the English .... 138 
General assembly of, estab- 
lished 155 

Life in 155-156 

Virginia Company, formed 140 

Orders of 144 

New charter given to 147 

Dealings with Pilgrims 174-175 

Walloons 235 

War-dances of Indians 83 

Watertown 202, 220-221 

Weathersfield 221 

Weymouth 205 

White, John 138 

White, Peregrine ♦ 179 

Wigwams, of Indians 64-66 

Williams, Roger, sent away from 

Massachusetts 204 

Founds Providence 223, 224 

Arrival of in America 223 

Religious views of 223-224 

Windsor 221 

Wingfleld, President, made first 

president of Virginia 141 

In disgrace 146 

Winthrop, John, arrival of 199 

Election of, as governor 201 

Removes to Boston 206 

Letter of, to wife 211-214 

Statue of 212 

Joined by family 214-215 

Wisconsin, Mounds of 32 

Zuni, Pueblo of (illustrated) 48 

Religious ceremonies at 51-52 



INTRODUCTORY. 



STORIES FROM AN ATTIC. 

Did any one ever hear of a boy or girl who does 
not like to spend rainy days in an attic ? There is 
a large family of brothers and sisters and cousins, 
in a certain city, who have for their play-room the 
attic of a big, old-fashioned house that was built 
before the Revolution. It is full of heavy oaken 
chests and hair-cloth trunks and mysterious boxes 
of all sorts of shapes and sizes. 

Sometimes grandmother comes up to tell the 
children who owned these ancient boxes, and 
where they have been in travels around the world. 
If the dear granny does not feel able to mount the 
stairs, over which the children scamper nimbly, 
she gives the bunch of keys, on their faded green 
ribbon, to the oldest girl. 

The oldest girl is proud of grandmother's con- 
fidence, and tries to make the others have an extra 

good time when she unlocks the trunks and brings 

7 



8 INTRODUCTORY. 

out the old bonnets and dresses, the fans and slip- 
pers of years and years ago. Once in a while the 
oldest boy is allowed to take a screw-driver and 
open some of the chests which belonged to his 
grandfather, who was a famous friend of the In- 
dians, and a good fighter, too, in his day. From his 
chests come forth Indian bows and arrows, leather 
stockings and moccasins, queer pipes, knives, belts, 
and many things of which the boys and girls do 
not know the names. Another man in the family 
was captain of a ship that sailed the eastern seas 
many years before the children were born. 

These young folks used to like nothing better 
than to be alone among these treasures ; not that 
they wished to be away from grandmother ; but it 
was " such fun " to guess what aunt the horse-hair 
bonnet fitted ; who gave great-grandfather the set 
of conch-shell buttons that are like a set owned by 
General Washington. Every one of the boys has 
his idea of gfreat-gfrandfather's strength from his 
big, clumsy musket and his holster pistol, which 
hang from the rafters. 

There was a great mystery for a long time over 
four long leather buckets, painted red, with great- 



INTRODUCTORY. \) 

grandfather's name in white letters. The buckets 
were half-full of balls, as heavy as lead, and old, 
broken pewter spoons, some of them hammered 
out flat and thin. One day the mystery was 
cleared by Aunt Betsey. The children did not 
ask her. That would have spoiled half the fun, 
they thought ; but one of them heard her tell a 
visitor that the family still had her grandfathers 
water-buckets. Every man in the village, she said, 
was obliged to have one or two sets of water-buck- 
ets, and to use them, too, whenever a neighbor's 
house or barn took fire. Auntie had often heard 
her grandfather tell how on an alarm of lire all 
the men of the village rushed out with their buck- 
ets and formed two lines between the fire and the 
nearest well. They kept the full buckets going 
toward the lire, and the empty ones toward the 
well just as fast as the neighbors and their hired 
men could handle them. 

"Our buckets are full of bullets and old metal," 
auntie continued. " I have heard my mother tell 
how every old spoon and scrap of pewter was 
saved and hammered out to be melted up and run 
into bullet-moulds, She said we must always 



10 INTRODUCTORY. 

keep that scrap in the buckets, for it is just as it was 
when the family were at work on it, and the alarm 
came that Indians were coming and everything 
was hidden up the chimney. " 

The children talked this over with the buckets 
in front of them, and decided that the true sto- 
ries about the things in the attic were more excit- 
ing than guesses and make-believe stories. So, 
now, they ask grandmother and Aunt Betsey and 
every one they know for the true stories. Some- 
times they are told to look at pictures and read 
books on our early history and the manners and 
customs ; sometimes they are told to go to muse- 
ums. They like to do so, now that they have 
learned that these things show how the people 
looked and what they did, and even what they 
were thinking of when the important events hap- 
pened that the school histories mention. 

Of course, these children soon wanted to know 
about the Indians. Then they asked where the 
Indians came from ; what was this country before 
there were any attics and old chests, before there 
were any villages or fire-buckets ; what was it as 
far back as any one knows? 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EARLIEST TIMES WE KNOW OF. 

Of late years people have found many true sto- 
ries of the men and women who lived in our coun- 
try thousands of years before our great-grand- 
fathers. The people who have found these stories 
are called antiquarians, which is a long, dull- 
sounding name to you, if you do not know the 
meaning of it, and what interesting things are dis- 
covered by the hard work of such persons. 

STONES HIDDEN IN THE EARTH. 

How have they learned such wonderful things, 
do you suppose ? By digging in the earth ; by 
digging in certain places, where they have learned 
to look for antiquities — another word that must be 
known to be appreciated. Many places where 
such things lay hidden were first found by acci- 
dent, by workmen digging wells, ploughing fields, 

or laying the foundations of railroads, cutting 

11 



12 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

through mounds and gravel banks, and even in 
old river beds. 

GOOD WORK OF ANTIGIUARIANS. 

The workmen often found curious things, which 
some antiquarian would hear of, and go hundreds 
of miles to see. 

"Why," he would say, "these workmen have 

"a 



£:■"• 



£•*' 



^? 




A— Black top soil. 

B— Yellow drift (Glacial sand) containing chipped implements 

and flakes. 
C— Yellowish-white sand. 

come upon things that were made before the time of 
Indians we know about." The men thought they 
were cutting through natural earth, but the antiquar- 
ian knew better than that. He looked carefully at 
the outside of the place, and at others like it near by. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 13 

Then he brought educated and skilful workmen 
of his own to open some of them. They worked 
carefully, so as to see just how the hills or pits 
were made, and what they contained. 

They said : " These stone implements and bones 
are the remains of ancient people, who must have 
lived and died and been forgotten before the time 
of any people known to our histories of America." 

That is why these discoveries are called prehis- 
toric. 

After the first findings, they began to search 
for others. Colleges and historical societies, and 
even the United States government, gave men and 
money to the search. 

COLLECTIONS IN MUSEUMS. 

There are several museums where you can see 
such "finds," all nicely labeled, and oftentimes a 
custodian to explain to you about them. The 
largest and finest collections are at the Peabody 
Museum in Cambridge, Mass., the American 
Museum of Natural History at Central Park, New 
York City, at the Smithsonian or National Museum 
in Washington, I). C, and the American Museum 
of Natural History at the University of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

We may not believe all the antiquarians think 



14 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

about the earliest people. Perhaps by the time 
you are grown men and women main' new discov- 
eries will change their beliefs ; but the present 
discoveries tell us a great deal which cannot be 
changed. We know that main', mam' generations 
of people lived here long before the time of the 
savages found by Europeans near the beginning 
of the seventeenth century. The Europeans, who 
thought this country was part of India, called the 
savages Indians. They had to have some name 
for them, so we must have some names for the 
prehistoric peoples. We call the first people of 
which we have traces by the name of glacier men. 

THE GLACIAL OR ICE AGE. 

This is the name for a time in the history of North 
America when the climate was much more moist 
and cold than it is now. It was so cold that the 
moisture fell to the earth in the form of snow. The 
snows fell continually ; and as there were no 
"warm spells'' or any summers to make them 
melt and run off, they piled up, like the snowdrifts 
of many winters, one upon another. Then almost 
all of our country looked as parts of Alaska and 
Greenland do to-day. All the valleys and hollows 
were filled with tightly-packed and hard-frozen 
snow, which we call glaciers. They extended for 




< %■ 



16 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

miles and miles in great, broad, white rivers, be- 
tween the highest mountains. All the smaller hills 
were covered. All these rivers moved, not dash- 
ingly or rapidly, as rivers of water do, but slowly, 
grindingly, carrying everything they could tear 
from the mountain sides with them. 

If you had been on any of those vast snow- 
streams, and had driven a row of stakes in a 
straight line almost anywhere, you would have 
found, after a time, that your line had grown 
crooked, or had become an arc, because the mid- 
dle of the glacier moved faster than its sides. 
The glaciers moved so slowly that you could not 
tell that they moved at all, except in some such 
way as by the stakes. They moved faster in sum- 
mer, when the hot sun melted them a little, than 
in winter, and faster in the daytime than at night. 

MORAINES. 

As the glaciers moved, they carried trees, all the 
loose gravel and stones of the mountainsides, even 
big boulders, weighing hundreds of tons. These 
lay in long rows along the centre and at the sides 
of the glacier. They are called moraines. 

When you roll a big snowball, you know how it 
takes up dirt, pebbles, and almost everything in its 
way. Sometimes, after vour ball has melted, you 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 17 

find a little heap of the things it picked up. Per- 
haps, also, there is a broken line of pebbles along 
the path where you rolled it. The paths of our 
glaciers have been traced in much the same way. 

THE GREAT PREHISTORIC SPRINGTIME. 

After a long ice age, when glaciers covered 
much of our country, a change came in the cli- 
mate, which we might call the great prehistoric 
springtime. The air grew warmer, and the moist- 
ure fell in rain instead of snow. Then the air 
grew drier. The rain ceased part of the time. 
The glaciers began to melt, to crack, to break up, 
to rush through their valleys, and sail off into the 
ocean in icebergs. Water rushed from under 
them in torrents, cutting its way through the val- 
leys and forming deep river channels to the ocean. 
Wherever the snow melted it dropped its stones, as 
your snowballs do. Much of our country is still 
covered with what is called the drift of the glaciers 
— and very stony firms it makes, too. 

Pieces of rock, worn smooth by their travels, are 
still strewn over the glacial valley, some of them 
thousands of miles from their native beds, out of 
which they were roughly pulled in the cold ice 
age. Laborers often find them far in the ground, 
sometimes fifteen feet deep, under layers and lay- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 19 

ers of dirt and soil that must have gathered during 
many centuries. 

MAMMOTHS. 

We think that there must have been animals 
even as early as then, by the skeletons found near 




Mammoth. 



remains of glaciers. Because these skeletons are 
so much larger than any animals of our times, we 
call them mammoths. 

THE GLACIAL MEN. 

All this time you have been wondering, probably, 
if there were any people living among the glaciers 
or in the great springtime. Apparently there were ; 
for roughly-shaped stone tools have been found in 
some of the layers of the soil eovering the deeply- 



20 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 





Knife (Oregon). 



buried glacial boulders. Whenever you hear the 
word tool, you think of a man to use it. There 
must have been men not only to use but 
to make these things. Rough and odd as 
they are, some people must have made 
them ; for it is hardly possible that they 
were worn into these shapes by the action 
of water and gravel moving over them. 
Men who have studied the natural and artificial 
shapes of stones, point out 
to us how these are chipped 
off in one place, hollowed 
in another, and smoothed 
in another, all in such fashion as to make them use- 
ful. Besides, others like them have been found in 
other parts of this country and in Europe, where 
there were several proofs that they were made by 
men of an early age. 

LIFE OF THE GLACIAL PEOPLE. 

The climate of the country about the ice-sheets 
was not too cold for trees to grow, or even for a 
rough sort of farming, people think ; for some of 
the tools found are like axes and hoes. Here are 
pictures of such stone tools, showing how like tools 
are used with wooden handles by modern Indians. 
If they tell a peaceful story of sowing and harvest- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



21 




A.dze Blade 
of Stone. 



ing, they also tell of trouble. Many times they have 
been found helter-skelter, as if left in haste. It is 
thought that they were dropped by men 
who fled before the advancing ice-sheet, 
when it began to melt fast, or that they 
were overtaken by it and killed. 

You may see some of these things in 
the museum collections. They are odd, 
rough, stone things that would have no 
meaning to you if you did not know the stories of 
the people who used them. Some of them seem 
to have been made to kill animals, some to cut 
them up for food, others to re- 
move the skin and to make it into 
clothes. You see we know very 
little about the people of the ice 
ag-e. We believe they were here, 

Adze, with Modern O J 

^Sl^^vSH- because we have found tools, like 
those of a prehistoric people in 
Europe. Perhaps all were of one race, and our 
glacial men came from Europe on an ice-sheet 
which may have spread over the far north Atlantic. 
There is no proof of how they came or what be- 
came of them. Some antiquarians think that they 
all perished as the mammoths did. Others think 
that they went north, as the glaciers began to melt, 
Jveeping close to the ice-sheet They believe the 




22 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

glacial men's descendants still live in the far north, 
and are what we call the Eskimos. Still others 
believe that the rongh stone men, as they are 
sometimes called, grew more refined as time went 
on, and that it was their descendants who made 
better implements of polished stone and flint, which 
we find now by digging in heaps of sand and 
shells by the water, by hunting in caves, or by 
delving into large mounds piled up high, in other 
parts of the country. 

FROSTY STONE, THE ICE BOY : A STORY. 

Percy Brownley sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes 
and calling to his mother to come to him quickly. 
While he waited almost breathlessly for her to step 
across the hall to his bedside, he looked about his 
room as if in search of something entirely different 
from what he saw with his frightened, staring 
eyes. 

His mother's voice seemed to calm him some- 
what as she hurried to him, saying, " What makes 
you shiver so, and what makes you look so fright- 
ened, my boy? " 

"I guess any boy would shiver and be scared, 
too, if lie were an ice boy, living right near a lot 
of icebergs that might slide over him in the night. 
I thought one had, but — but here I am in my own 



24 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

room and not in a turf hut, and I can see the sun- 
light and the maple-trees — outside my window. I 
don't understand it all." 

" Why, Percy, you have been dreaming — " 

" Dreaming? and it isn't true ? " 

"Why, no! don't shiver so— here — lie down in 
bed again — pull up the clothes about you, and 
mother will sit beside you to hear the dream. Now, 
my little ice boy, tell me who you were in your 
dream ; the son of an ice man ? " 

11 Why, yes! that is just what I was ; but not 
our kind of an ice man. My father was one of the 
ice men who lived in the glacial time that sister 
Lucy was talking about with the young professor 
who came from college with brother Ned, last 
evening. I was listening to them when you called 
me to go to bed." 

"Then I suppose you went to dreamland to find 
out more about those people." 

By this time Percy was calm and warm. With 
one hand resting in his mother's and the other free 
to make gestures, he told her how he had been 
living in the ice age of America. 

" My. name was Frosty Stone. I had two broth- 
ers and a sister, and I had, why I had a different 
father and mother from you and papa Brownley. 
We lived in a hut made of turf, with skins hung 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



25 



on the inside of the walls. It was dark, and the 
oil we burned smelt badly. We had wood to burn 
to keep us warm, but not much, for it was so hard 
to get. We had to take a long journey 
of several days to a place where some 
tall, weather-beaten trees grew. These 
we hacked down with heavy stone 
axes. The men used large ones and we 
boys had smaller ones. On our way 
home with the wood on our sleds, 
we went through a settlement where 
they had corn-fields in summer. Once 
some of their corn, paid for it with his outer fur 

coat. He thought the 




Rude Chipped 

Implement op 

Early Man. 



father got 




ath 



Rude Axe, Hafted Chipped Implement 
Modern Indian. 



weatner 



it 



had 



•old 



er 



changed 
and he should not need 
but as we neared 
ionic, each day grew 
aid he wanted it airain. Mother seemed 
She pounded it with a 



delighted with the corn 



stone and stirred it up with water. I don't believe 
I should want to eat any of it now, but it tasted 
good when I was Frosty Stone. 

" Mother had to make father another coat out 
of the skin of a deer he shot the next day. She 
cut the skin off from the fat and flesh with a flat, 
sharp-edged stone, punched holes in it, and sewed 



26 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

it with such a queer needle. It was coarse and 
long, made of a piece of thin bone with a big hole 
for the eye. Gruess what she had for a thread. 
Mamma Brownley ! why, the dried muscles of 
some animals father had killed at different times. 

"We had some of the deer-meat cooked on a 
stone before the tire that night, and felt glad 
father had to have the new coat." 

Then Percy's mother said, '• I should think you 
had a very happy life, and plenty of snow for slid- 
ing and snow-balling. 7 ' 

11 1 think I have had enough. It seemed pretty 
good for a while, but I was afraid of the great big 
animals that lived down in the forest region and 
sometimes strayed up near where we lived, and 
oh, mother ! " exclaimed Percy, shivering again, 
" the iceberg was so near. It moved towards us a 
little every day in what we called the summer 
months, when for a while there was no snow about 
our hut. Father and Mother Stone used to talk 
about it, and say they must make another hut 
farther away from the edge of the ice-sheet, But 
colder weather came again, freezing it up too hard 
to move more than a wee speck each day — and 
then they thought it safe to stay. But oh, one 
night, after a few warmer days, there was a sud- 
den thaw ! We heard it cracking ! I thought the 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 27 

whole glacier was coming right over our hut to 
bury us under the snow, and then— 

" Then you awoke " —put in his mother's calm 
voice. 

" Yes, and found I wasn't Frosty Stone, the ice 
boy, any longer." 



28 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTEE II. 

STORIES FROM MOUNDS. 

After the people of the ice age, there were sev- 
eral races, or, perhaps, several branches of one 
race, who covered much of our northern continent. 
One may have followed another, or all may have 
lived at the same time. At any rate, they lived 
differently. If one came before another, the first 
were probably 

THE MIDDEN MEN. 

The people who are named after the heaps of 
refuse and shells they made in the places where 
they lived, are called midden men. These middens, 
or shell-heaps, are found on the northwest coast, 
and along the Atlantic shore, from Florida to Lab- 
rador. Some are found also inland along the great 
lakes and the St. Lawrence River. The old shell- 
heaps down in Florida are particularly interesting. 

Try to imagine great sand or earth-covered 
piles of mollusk-shells, sometimes joined together 
so as to form one long line of embankment. Scat- 
tered through them are many odd-looking bone 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA 



29 



tools, and many other strange objects made of the 
bones of such animals as the elk, deer, beaver and 




Florida Shell-heap worn away by the River. 

A— Skull in place. 

Cut loaned by Peabody Museum. 

seal. Remember that only a few of these animals 
are found now in our country south of Maine and 
Michigan, and that the heaps are found as far 
south as Florida. There are 
some rude cooking-dishes and 
a few pieces of broken pottery 
in these refuse heaps, just as 
you find pieces of crockery 
in an old ash-heap now. 

The wisest antiquarians do 
not know how old these heaps are. They believe 
that they are not as old as the glacial and early 
stone aj>'e, because no mammoth bones are in them. 




Pottery Vessel from Shell- 
heap. 



30 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



From some things they appear very old. Others 
belong to a later time. So the midden men seem 
to have lived for many, many years — perhaps many 
hundreds of years. They seem to have thrown about 
everything they had into their heaps. In some 
of the heaps are articles, or pieces of articles, 
which must have been made in Europe. It is be- 
lieved that the midden men were not all gone be- 
fore the early discoverers began to come from Eu- 
rope, near the beginning of the sixteenth century. 

THE CAVE MEN. 

Some time during the midden men's period, or 
after them, lived the cave men. Caves have 
always been used as dwellings. 
Even now, in lonely parts of the 
shores of Scotland, men, women 
and children live huddled together 
in dark and dirty caves. 

Imagine what* life in such a 
place would be ; not attractive, or 
perhaps endurable, for us, yet we 
find something very interesting 
about the old caves inhabited many 
hundreds of years ago. There are 
caves in all parts of the country that show many 
positive traces of the people who have lived there. 




Woven Sandal from a 
Cave in Kentucky. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



31 



One of the greatest is the Salt Cave of Ken- 
tucky. The rock has been hollowed out partly by 
nature and partly by the people. Scattered about 
in the dingy darkness were forms of animals, tools 
of stone, pottery, and the cinders of several 
hearths, where they had fire for warmth and cook- 
ing. There were pieces of 
cloth, too. The people wore 
sandals, and used bags of 
rope or twine which they 
made of hempen fibre and 
the inner bark of certain 
trees. You may see all these 
things at the Peabody Mu- 
seum in Cambridge. Thus 
you see that the cave men 
had ropes to fasten sticks for 
wooden handles to their stone and bone hoes, as is 
done to-day by the savages about the Papuan Gulf. 

These things seem like the work of people who 
knew more than the midden men. Perhaps some of 
the midden men's sons and their families began to 
be cave-dwellers before others lei't off making shell- 
heaps. 

THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 

Still another people, called mound-builders, 
lived in the time of the midden men and the eave- 




Woven Bag from eAVE in 
Kentucky. 



32 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



dwellers, or after them. Boys and girls may still 
see some of their mounds in Ohio, Indiana, Mis- 
souri, Wisconsin, and other parts of the country. 
For centuries they lay unknown and hidden by 
forests. They were discovered as the lands were 
cleared, and, fortunately, many of them were pre- 
served. From a distance they look like toy or arti- 
ficial hills made in 
H || ll circles, squares, rect- 

angles and crosses. 
The most interesting 
ones are shaped like 
animals. In Kentuc- 
ky there is an im- 
mense mound which 
looks somewhat like 
the shape of a bear. 
It measures about 
one hundred and fixe 
feet from the tip of 
the nose to the tail. In Ohio there is a serpent 
with open jaws and gracefully coiled tail. When 
they were first found men dug them up carelessly 
and ignorantly, breaking and upsetting all that 
was inside. 

Others, who knew their value, cut into them 
carefully, so as to open them by sections, keeping 




ffil 

MI 



Bird's-eye View of the Great Serpent 
Mound, Adams County, Ohio. 




Serpent Mound Park, Adams County, Ohio. 

A— Ground line. B— Skeleton in place. 

Photo, loaned by Peabody Museum. 



34 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

everything in place as nearly as possible, to see 
the contents and the form in which they were built. 
By this time hundreds of monnds have been 
opened. The smallest of them seem to have been 
mere watch or signal mounds. Others were cer- 
tainly burial places. 

MOUND VILLAGES. 

The largest of all the monnds seem to have been 
earthworks for a fortified village. They sometimes 
formed three sides of an enclosure fronting on a 
lake or river. Within the limits of these enclosures 
you may still see scores and scores of pits, where 
huts and wigwams once stood, the dwellings and 
workshops, perhaps, of the people who mounted 
o-uards in war times on the smallest mounds round 
about, and buried their dead in the others. 

THE BURIAL MOUNDS. 

These contained the skeletons of men, women 
and children. Sometimes these had been carefully 
placed on flat boulders : sometimes in graves made 
of fiat stones. In one mound the skeletons lay in 
rows ; in another in a circle, with heads toward 
the middle, like spokes in a wheel. Weapons were 
often found near the bones of the arm ; ornaments 
of stone and 'bone lay about the heads, and neck- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



35 



laces made of the teeth of large animals. Vessels 
of clay seem to have been placed over the graves, 
probably with food. Savages still put food instead 









Bird's-eye View of Ancient Earthworks, Ross County, Ohio. 

a — Large mound containing enclosure of timbers, altars, skeletons and 

implements, and ornaments of copper, bone and stone. 
b b 6— Small mounds. 
c— Small circular earthwork. 

The larger circular enclosure has an area of about forty acres. 
The square enclosure has an area of about twenty-seven acres. 
The smaller circular enclosure is about eight hundred feet in diameter. 



of flowers at the graves of their dead. Ashes near 
by show signs of the feasts held by the relatives at 
the grave. 



36 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 




Stone Axe. 



HOW DID THEY LIVE ? 

To imagine how these different peoples lived, 
we must look at their tools. They have left a large 
stone, which you might call an axe, with 
grooves in it, where a piece of hide or 
rope may have fastened it to a handle 
of wood. Other stones, about two and 
three-fourth inches long, seem like lit- 
tle axes. They are all well shaped, 
with good edges. Perhaps the chil- 
dren worked or played with the small ones. They 
seem to have left more 
arrow-points than any- 
thing else. These are 

()f mailY Shapes aild of Hafted Stone Axe. Modern Indian. 

man)' kinds of stone, especially of what we call 
flint. Some are shaped like leaves. 
Others are triangles. These early 
people had stone knives, to skin 
animals, probably, and to split bark 
from trees. Perhaps the women did 
this work, as Eskimo women do now. 
Hard and dirty work it must have 
been ; but their hands were protect- 

Flint Arrow Head. e d SOmewhat from tllC sharp stOUC 

blade by a back or handle of wood. This had 
holes in it, through which thongs of hide fastened 





EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



37 




Slate Knife (New England). 




it to the blade. This shape was most common in 

the North. In other parts of the country knives 

were shaped like large arrow- 
points, and fastened into sticks 

for handles. 

After the skinning- of an 

animal they used its flesh for 

food, and its fat for various purposes, and stretched 

and rubbed the hide until it was soft and pliable. 
When it was properly tanned they 
bored holes in it with bone awls, and 
sewed it into rough garments, with 
the sinews of animals for thread. 
They may have sewed also with 
a kind of "Indian hemp," which 

we call dog-bane or milkweed ; for they often 

used this hemp to make fish lines and nets. Of 

bone, also, they made 

different ornaments and 

tools. 

The men probably did 

the fighting, the hunting 

and fishing. Flat and 

notched stones, which 

look like hoes, and many 

mortars and pestles make us think that grain 

was raised for food also ; but there is nothing 



Slate Knife with 
Modern Handle 

(Alaska). 




Small Moktar and Pestle. 



38 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



to show whether the men or the women did the 
work. 

CIVILIZED PEOPLE. 

They must have been civilized in many respects. 
They had large mortars made in boulders and 
placed in the centre of the town. These were prob- 
ably a sort of town-mill, for the use of all. Many 




Mortar made in a Boulder. 
Cut loaned by Peabody Museum. 

small ones were found in different places, which 
seem to have been owned by private families. The 
smallest ones were used, we think, to grind paint, 
which was used, perhaps, to ornament the people's 
faces, certainly to decorate their dishes and vases. 
These people made dishes of clay and of soapstone 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 39 

for cooking and for many other purposes. They 
are of various shapes and sizes. 

Farmers all through this great country plough 
up bits of their pottery every year. Some 
pieces are large enough to show the shape and 
decorations of the vessel. These tell that the 
people's houses may have been scattered all over 
the country ; but only in the burial mounds and 




Pottery from Ancient Burial Mounds. 

Vessel in form of gourd. 

Bowl in form of fish. 

Jar in form of grotesque head. 

graves are the things found whole. There they 
have laid, safe from the plough-share for sev- 
eral hundreds of years. We may be more in- 
terested in these vessels than in any of the other 
things, for they tell us more of the people. They 
tell us how skilful the mound-builders were with 
their hands, what fancies worked in their brains. 
Some of the vases are so beautifully designed, 
so perfectly formed, and so artistically colored, 
that many archaeologists and ethnologists be- 



40 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

lieve that the mound - builders were far more 
civilized than any of the natives found in North 
America by Europeans after the discovery by Col- 
umbus. The natives of the seventeenth century 
may have been descendants of the skilful mound- 
builders ; they may have lived in the same places, 
gradually neglecting their arts and allowing their 
hands to lose their cunning. 

The natives found by the first explorers from 
Europe, several generations after them, chased 
their game through the forests without knowing 
that the hills they crossed were mounds, and with- 
out even a tradition of the early people who built 
them. 

The white settlers from Xew England, who 
drove the savages westward and cut down the trees, 
found the mounds not very long ago. So it is 
only lately that men interested in prehistoric peo- 
ple have known of them, and begun to trace the 
stories of those who built them. 

MIDDIE PITT, A LITTLE GIRL MOUND-BUILDER. 

The grave of a mound-builder's little girl was 
found one day, by a man who dug into one of 
those small, round pits, where it is supposed that 
the people's huts stood. It was in the Lebanon 
settlement in Tennessee. Below the bottom of the 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



41 



pit the little girl's bones were found on a smoothly- 
paved grave, with two flat stones at the head and 
the foot. Beside her were her toys. There were 




Bird's-eye View of Ancient Village Site of the Mound Builders, 
Lebanon, Tennessee. 

A— Ditch enclosing village. 
B— Inner embankment. 
C— Outer embankment. 
D— Entrance to village. 

E— Great mound. Probable site of council house or important building. 
F— Burial mound, with stone graves. 

The circular earthworks not designated by letters are probably the 
sites of dwellings. 



some shell beads, pearls and pretty little polished 
stones, a small earthen pot, a duck-shaped dish, and a 
water jar, like a bear, with a smoke-stack on his back. 



42 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 




Bird-shaped Bowl (Tennessee). 



The little girl was fond of these dishes, probably, 
and her mother filled them with food and water to 
be buried with her. The mother may have be- 
lieved that the little girl 
needed something to eat 
and drink, on her long 
journey to her new 
home ; or she may have 
believed that bad spirits 
would eat the food and 
leave the little girl in peace. 

She lived in a settlement of people who had 
round huts, clustered together within a high bank, 
which protected them from beasts and made it 
harder for enemies to get into their village. In 
the centre of this town was 
a sort of mound where they 
had an altar and worshiped 
their heathen gods. Then 
there was a large mound 
used for a burying-ground 
for grown people. They 
got the dirt for these big 
mounds from a place near the wall at one end of 
their village, out of which they dug so much that 
it was a big hollow or sink. There the little chil- 
dren could play — I wonder if one of their games 




Earthenware Vessel 
(Tennessee). 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



43 



was hide and seek! Whatever they played, they 
came in hungry at noon. What do you suppose 
they had to eat? We have learned some of the 
things from the waste heaps or middens that have 
been found near the pits where their huts stood, 
much like those of the midden men. The mound- 
builders left piles of 
shells of different kinds 
of mollusks, and bones 
of various animals and 
birds. They had plenty 
of turkey, for they were 
wild and plentiful all 
over the country then. 
We think that they 
had mush or porridge, 
too, made of some kind 
of grain, probably corn, and cooked over the fire. 
In the waste heaps are broken dishes that have 
been smoked and burnt. Perhaps the little girl 
had her mush every evening out of the duck bowl. 
At night she lay on some rushes or leaves for a 
bed and had a deer skin over her. We do not know 
her name, but I like to call her Middie Pitt. 




Bear-shaped Vase (Tennessee). 



44 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER III. 

EABLY PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 

While the midden men, the cave men and mound- 
builders lived in the eastern part of North America, 
a more skilful people occupied the vast square now 
covered by the four states of New Mexico, Colorado, 
Arizona and Utah. 

THE CLIFF DWELLERS 

lived in many places throughout this region, but 
where, we do not know exactly. The ruins of their 
homes are still standing near the rivers Rio Grande, 
Gila, and branches of the Colorado. Now-a-days 
travelers find some of that country so hot and dry 
that they can scarcely endure the climate long 
enough to look at the wonderful scenery, the great 
masses of bare rock with deep chasms called 
canons, where torrents of water rush through in 
the short, rainy season. There is more than scenery 
to admire. High up in the clefts of these wild, 
bare rocks, are many half-ruined villages, built by 
a people who have left us almost no other traces of 
their history. 



46 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

How did they get there ? Why did they live 
there ? What sort of people were they ? Did they 
run up and down these sheer cliffs, like a cat on a 
tree, to visit the rest of the world? Did they have 
rope ladders, or did they have nothing but the 
risky hold for hands and feet, which is now afforded 
by the small notches cut in the face of the bare 
rocks ? From a distance these oddly-shaped notches 
look like mere natural breaks in the rock ; but 
people believe that they were cut by the cliff 
dwellers. If they could cut these holes and build 
such houses, why did they not build stairs up the 
cliffs? Probably because these dwellings were 
cities of refuge for a people who lived and had 
their farms on the plains below. They may have 
been a war-like people among themselves, or they 
may have had bitter enemies, from whom they fled 
to their cliff dwellings so swiftly that the enemies 
did not know what became of them, for the vil- 
lages are so like the rocks in structure and in color 
that they cannot be seen at a great distance. 

They were built by a strong and skilful people. 
Certain parts of the houses seemed to have been 
watch-towers placed to command a wide view over 
the surrounding country. There we imagine sen- 
tinels watched for the approach of their enemies 
from the north and west. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 4< 

From their high places of refuge, the people 
may have seen the enemy enter the valley be- 
low them, where the fields seem to have been un- 
der cultivation, and destroy all their homes and 
farms. Perhaps they always lived in the cliffs and 
had only their fields below. Certainly they could 
not have grown anything on the bare rocks. 

THE PUEBLOS. 

Another ancient people who lived in the south- 
west were the Pueblos. They were found by the 
Spaniards and called by a Spanish word which 
means village. The word is used for the people, 
their houses and their villages. In fact, a pueblo 
house was often like a village or a portion of a vil- 
lage. Over a hundred families sometimes lived 
under the same roof, or, rather, above the same 
foundation. No one knows how many centuries ago 
some of these houses were built. Many of them, 
partly in ruins, are standing now, and are the 
homes of the descendants of those who built them. 

The Pueblos' houses were built in a sort of semi- 
circle or in a rectangle about an open court, from 
which one story rose after another in terraces 
like an ancient amphitheatre or the tiers of seats 
about a modern baseball field. The rooms about 
the court were but one story high. Behind them 



EARLIEST DAYS L\ f AMERICA. 49 

rose another, and behind them another, till the 
back of the house was sometimes six stories high. 
The lower rooms appear to have had no doors 
or windows for either light or people to enter from 
without ; but in the floor of each second story 
room there was a trap-door or scuttle-hole into the 
room beneath. The lower rooms were used as 
cellars for storing grain and other food. Each 
family probably controlled the cellar below its 
living room. The roofs were made of logs, with 
brush and bark laid over them, and a top-coating 
of mud several inches thick. There were no stairs 
in any part of the pueblos. Ladders were usually 
left standing on every roof or terrace, so that 
people could go from one to another till they 
reached the apartment they wanted. At sign of 
the coming of an enemy, though, all ladders were 
quickly pulled up. 

THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE. 

All the people in one of these great house-towns 
as they have been called, were sometimes united 
under the command of one chief or priest. He 
directed them in building the house, in tilling the 
fields on the "mesa," as they called the table-land 
on which the house stood, and in all their work, 
their religion and their daily life. They may have 



50 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

been a people with many arts. Their farms were 
watered by canals. Their crops were large. They 
were warlike, and they successfully defended their 
villages from their more savage neighbors. They 
made pottery of more beautiful form, coloring and 
design than the mound-builders. 

PUEBLO INDIANS. 

We call the people who live there now, Pueblo 
Indians. They are neither as prosperous nor as 
skilful as their forefathers were. Changes in the 
climate have reduced the rivers, dried the canals, 
and parched the country until all the fertile fields 
have disappeared, and the people have a hard time 
to make a living. They have suffered other losses, 
too, from the raids of wild Apaches and other In- 
dians living to the north and west of them. 

Pottery is still made in the old pueblos, but not 
with the skill of olden times. The Spaniards, who 
found the Pueblos, called them a wonderful people 
and admired their work and their prowess in war ; 
but the Spaniards taught them new customs which 
did much to change their lives. Moreover, here 
and everywhere, when the Spaniard saw anything 
he wanted, he took it, from the son of a chief to 
wait upon him, to a curiously moulded dish or a 
bright-colored blanket. The Pueblos of to-day 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



51 



are descendants of a race who were taught some- 
thing of the Roman Catholic religion and some- 
thing of the Spanish language and of many 
Spanish customs, all of which they have mingled 
with their inheritance from earlier times. 



THE DUCKING OF THE CLOWNS. 

One of the most amusing of the Pueblo customs 
is what they call "ducking the clowns." If you 
were at the Zuiii pueblo in the month of July, 



■IP i, tRg 3 v • 




\ i 



Du-me-chim-chee; or, The Ducking of the Clowns. 

you might see this strange ceremony. All the 
men and women of the pueblos are out of doors, 
on the terraces, and on the ground. Presently, 
ten men, who live in the house, come out. They 
are dressed in coarse, blue cloth, and wear horrible 



52 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

masks of mud. First, they form a line, as you see 
in the picture. Each one bends over and places 
his hands on the hips of the man before him. In 
a moment they start to run around the outside or 
back- walls of the pueblo, singing " Du-me-ehim- 
chee, Du-me-chim-chee," over and over again, 
while the crowd shout and laugh. The women 
on the walls above "duck" them with jars of 
water, some of it clean, some dirty. One girl 
after another has her jar full and waiting for them 
to come by her terrace. It is an old ceremony, 
called " ducking the clowns/ 7 and everyone, young 
and old, delights in it, the "clowns " as much as 
the others. Troops of children usually follow the 
"clowns," and if they get some of the water, the 
greater is the fun. 

This frolic is part of a long religious ceremony. 
The next day a priest leads a party to the Sacred 
Lake to carry offerings to the rain gods, and to 
pray for rains upon their dry land in summer. 

THE ANNUAL POTTERY BAKING. 

While the priest and his attendants are praying 
for rain at the Sacred Lake, the women of the pu- 
eblo bake or "fire" all the decorated pots and 
bowls and clay animals that have been made in 
the past weeks. I have seen a picture of a Pueblo 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 53 

woman and her daughter at this work. Their pot- 
tery is piled in heaps of dirt, about which the fires 
are lighted. They hold a blanket to protect the 
fire from the wind. You see a picture of one of 
their vases in the corner of the large picture of 
the Pueblo house. 

TIHUS. 

The little girls in the pueblos have dolls or tihus 
to play with. They are made to represent gods. 
Here is the picture of one — curious-looking, isn't 
it ? These dolls, made and dressed by the mothers, 
are used in religious ceremonies, and to teach 
the children of the pueblos many ideas about their 
gods. After that the children have them to play 
with. 

THE PARENT RACE. 

Some ethnologists believe that all these early 
people of America — the Pueblos, the Cliff-dwell- 
ers, the Mound-builders, and the Midden-men came 
from one race, which lived in Central America, 
and were the builders of the wonderful structures 
which are found there to-day. If you put your 
pencil on your maps at Central America, and draw 
a line to the Pueblo States of New Mexico, Ari- 
zona, Utah and Colorado; then go back and draw 



54 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



another line from Central America to the Ohio 
Valley; and still other lines to the Atlantic and the 




Calako Mana; or, The Corn Maiden. 



Pacific coasts, you will see that one race may have 
sent out emigrants in all these directions. They 
may have gone at various times, and for various 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 55 

reasons. They went to different places, and they 
may have mingled with more barbaric races than 
their own. War, perhaps, was made on them as 
intruders. All of these conditions had much to do 
with changing* their habits and customs, until after 
a few generations they were like a different peo- 
ple. Probably they forgot their parent race, as 
their descendants have forgotten them. Men in- 
terested in such things might never have thought 
of the connection if they had not found the remains, 
which are carefully kept now in our museums. 
When we compare the vases and tools made by 
the Pueblos with those made by the Cliff-dwellers 
and Mound-builders of the United States, and all 
with the finer things made by the ancient people 
of Central America, we see that the peoples may 
have been related to each other in some way, and 
probably came from the same race ; but if they 
did, they grew far apart before the time when 
they made the things we have seen. 



56 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE INDIANS. 

The first real history we have of our country is 
in the reports made by voyagers from Europe 
near the beginning of the sixteenth century. Those 
voyagers found a race here, whom they called In- 
dians, because they thought the country was a part 
of India. The natives were also called salvages, 
or savages, because they did not have the customs, 
called civilization, of Europe and the Orient. Be- 
cause they did not know the Christian religion, 
they were called heathen. We know that some 
of the Indians were descendants of the Pueblos. 
Many people think that others were from the Mid- 
den-men and Cave-dwellers, the Mound-builders 
and Cliff-dwellers. Most of the Indians of to-day 
have forgotten the customs and arts of their fore- 
fathers, whom the Europeans first saw. 

We know but little of what they were then, how- 
ever ; for the Europeans brought many things to 
the Indians that changed their customs, especially 
their industries, before any record was made of 
them. Up to that time the natives made every- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 57 

thing for themselves ; but as soon as they saw the 
bright-colored clothing, the glass beads, tin cups, 
and the showy trinkets of the Europeans, they will- 
ingly gave any quantity of their own things for 
them. 

NATIVE MANUFACTURES. 

The Europeans carried these products home, to 
show their kings and countrymen what manner of 
people they had found in the New World. They 
took fabrics of yucca fibre, of dog-bane, of bark, 
and of goat-hair. They took clay vases and jars, 
shell-work, and articles made of stone, of bone, 
and of many other things. 

The natives ceased to make most of them as soon 
as they found that the strangers would bring their 
bright things over in large quantities and barter 
them for the skins of animals, which the Indians 
trapped and shot with the strangers' guns far 
more easily than with their own bows and arrows. 
With the new beads and coarse, red flannel they 
made new things to please the Europeans, as the 
articles from across the seas pleased themselves. 
So it was not very long before the life' of the na- 
tives which they had lived by themselves for hun- 
dreds of years, perhaps, was entirely changed. Few 
voyagers learned enough about it to give us the 



58 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

true picture of it. The most that we know of our 
red men is of the red men under European influ- 
ences. 

HOW THE INDIANS LOOKED. 

The natives who lived here when the first Eu- 
ropeans came dressed far differently from any you 
may see now ; but in face and figure there has 
been little change. Almost all of them had dark 
skins, straight, black hair, low and receding fore- 
heads, black eyes, high cheek-bones, flat noses, 
white teeth under big lips, and no beards. Their 
figures were tall and straight, often plump, yet 
almost never fat. Europeans spoke of the children 
and young men and women as "comely," and of 
the old men and women as " uglie." Their hair 
was worn in different ways. In the South one side 
of the head was shaved clean, and from the 
other the hair hung in a long braid or tied 
bunch. Some tribes wore all the hair cut short, 
except enough to make one long " pig-tail " from 
the middle of the head. Others left a single strip 
through the middle of the head, which stuck up 
like a cock's comb. 

DRESS. 

Feathers have always been used as ornaments, 
sometimes in garments, sometimes in head-dresses, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 59 

and sometimes as single feathers, cut and painted 
to show various degrees of honors won in war. 

The Indians, especially in the warm, Southern 
countries, wore little clothing, sometimes no more 
than a kind of short skirt, which did not reach to 
their knees. About their necks the Indians hung 
strings of beads, or the polished teeth of animals, 
strings of birds' claws, squirrels' heads, and many 
such ornaments. In colder parts of the coun- 
try deer and bears' skins were worn in winter, with 
the fur left on the pelt. Large, warm garments 
were sometimes made of many small skins sewed 
together. They were from such animals as the 
otter, beaver and raccoon. For summer wear 
lighter skins were chosen. Sometimes the fur was 
scraped off for summer garments. For hunting in 
thickets, the men had a sort of leather breeches. 
They had leggings or socks of skins, too, and low 
shoes, called moccasins. 

The customs in dress were changed by Eu- 
ropeans before almost any others. This was partly 
because the white men thought their own way of 
dressing was the only right and proper way, but 
more, perhaps, because they wanted the skins to 
sell to the merchants at home. 

A Dutch trader said that the natives were eager 
to barter their fine furs for common red flannel, 



60 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

which they wrapped loosely about them, and 
glanced down upon with a grin of satisfaction. 
From that time to this, the dress of the Indians has 
been a funny mixture of Indian and European 
fashions and materials. 

In the pictures of Indians in this book you can 
see what things you think they made themselves, 
and what were probably made by Europeans. 

aUEEN OHOLASC. 

William Strachey, an Englishman, writing about 
Virginia in 1618, described the dress of Queen 
Oholasc, Powhatan's wife. You may get two things 
from what he says. One is a picture of the queen 
and her wardrobe. The other is the fun of try- 
ing to tell his quaint story in your own lan- 
guage. Strachey says : "I was once early at her 
house, yt being sominertime, when she was layed 
without dores, under the shadowe of a broad 
leaved tree, upon a pallett of osiers, spred over 
with four or five fyne grey matts, herself covered 
with a faire white drest deere skynne or two, and 
when she rose, she had a mayd who fetcht her a 
frontall [a forehead ornament] of white currall and 
pendants of great but imperfect couloured and 
worse drilled pearles, which she put into her eares, 
and a chayne with long lyncks of copper which 




Trotting Wolf and Squaw. 



0-2 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

they call Tapoantaminais, and which came twice or 
thrice about her necke and they accompt a jolly 
ornament, and sure thus attired with some variety 
of feathers and flowers stuck in their haires, they 
seem as debonaire, quaynt, and well pleased as a 
daughter of the house of Austria behune [decked] 
with all her jewels ; likewise her mayd fetcht her 
a mantill made of blue feathers so artificially and 
thick sewed togither, that it seemed like a deepe 
purple satten, and is very smooth and sleeke ; and 
after she brought her water for her hands, and then 
a branch or twoo of fresh greene ashen leaves as 
for a towell to dry them." 

PAINTING AND TATTOOING. 

The Indians did not keep their skin sleek and 
smooth to show the swarthy hue. They painted 
themselves in many colors. To make these decor- 
ations the more lasting, the patterns were some- 
times pricked deeply into the skin with thorns and 
the thorn holes filled with paint, much like the 
tattooing still done in the South Pacific Islands and 
other places. One of the old voyagers said, 
" Many forms of paintings they use ; but he is the 
most gallant who is the most monstrous and ugly 
to behold." 

The Indians' faces and hands, and often nearly 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



63 



the whole of their bodies, were tattooed in this way 
or painted for special occasions. 




KINSHIP AND TOTEMS. 

Indian children had no opportunity to be lonely. 
They lived near their grandparents, uncles and 
aunts. They had dozens of cousins to play with. 
In fact, their "families" were clans. 
A village was usually made up of a 
group of families related to each 
other and bound together to help 
one another, to live and to die for 
one another, if necessary. Each 
such clan had an emblem, called a V^->\ 
" totem, 7 ' somewhat as the old clans •-</ }-¥ 

in Europe had their colors and their j^^/ 
coats-of-arms. The totem was a bird, 
a turtle, a fish, or some other familiar 
thing-. Images were made of it in 
wood or stone. Representations of 
it were carved on shells, worn about totems of: 

. ill land Indians. 

the neck, or worn m belts or blank- 
ets ; and often a rude picture of it was tattooed on 
the men's bodies. In one way or another the totem 
was worn as a badge by members of the clan. It 
was also used as a signature in declarations of war, 
in treaties, in boundary agreements and in other 




64 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



matters of business with other elans, and with the 
white men after the eolonists came. 



VILLAGES. 

One of these large elans made a village by it- 
self, and the village was a group of huts or wig- 
wams. They did not always live in the same 
place the year round. In summer, they were usu- 
ally on the bank of a river, or the shore of a bay 
where there was good fishing. Toward winter, 

when the hunting season 
came on, the whole vil- 
lage removed to the 
edge of a forest. 

The huts or wigwams 
made in many 
Some were of 
young trees set in the 
ground in a circle for a 
small hut, in two long 
rows for a large one. They were bent over at the top 
and fastened together, all covered with bark. Some- 
times the young trees or poles were driven in the 
ground at such an angle that they slanted toward 
the top and crossed at the ends. A hole was left for 
smoke, and the rest of the frame-work was closely 
covered with bark on the outside, and with skins 




were 

ways. 



Skin-covered Wigwam. 




The Town op Pomeiooc. 



66 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

on the inside. The long wigwams were usually 
so placed that the doors in each end looked toward 
the north and the south. According to the way 
of the wind, one or the other was nearly always open, 
to make the proper draft for the fire. We might 
not call it a proper draft, but the Indians were 
satisfied if it sent enough smoke through the hole 
in the top of the hut, to make the fire burn. The 
wigwam door was like a rude gate, covered by a 
piece of bark or skin. These doors were fastened 
with wooden pins when they were fastened at all. 

ABBINOS. 

There was nothing of what we call furniture in 
the wigwams, not even beds. Everyone sat and 
slept on skins and on mats woven from rushes by 
the women. These were thrown upon the ground, 
but all the men and women had their own mats 
and skins and their own places for them and for 
their own belongings, which they kept behind 
their mats. These spaces were called abbinos. 
They were on the bare earth, for the wigwams had 
no other floors. The Indian mother always as- 
signed the abbinos to each of the family when they 
settled in a new place, and to the visitor when they 
had company. Every new baby was taught to 
toddle to its mother's mat, and no one dared to 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 67 

take another's place or to meddle with the things 
kept there. 

A visitor among the Indians in New Netherland, 
said : "It is their custom to sleep only on the bare 
ground, and to have only a stone or bit of wood 
under their heads." 

MOVING. 

The people who lived in these simple dwellings 
found moving an easy matter. When the men 
decided to go from the seashore to the mountains, 
the women made a few compact bundles of the 
skins, the cooking utensils, and the other durable 
things they used, hoisted them on their backs and 
followed their men-folks to their new building 
lots. When they had horses, the horses carried 
the baggage on trailing poles. 

In the new home fresh poles were cut and the 
families were soon settled in new huts, which for 
a short time were rather clean. 

POWHATAN'S STOREHOUSE. 

In Isenacommacah, which was the Indian name 
for Virginia, the great chief, Powhatan, had a big 
storehouse, quite different from the wigwams. 
William Strachey said that it stood in a thicket 
of wood, that it was the chiefs storehouse for his 



68 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

treasures, such as skins, copper, pearls and beads, 
"which he storeth upp against the time of his 
death and bury all." There also he kept his store 
of red paint for ointment, and his bows and ar- 
rows. " This howse is fifty or sixty yards in length, 
frequented only by priests. At four corners of 
the howse stand four images as careful sentinells to 
defend and protect the howse ; one is like a dragon, 
another like a bear, the third like a leopard, and 
the fourth a giant-like man." All were as ugly 
to look upon as the workmanship of the Indians 
could make them. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



69 



CHAPTER V. 

INDIAN CHILDREN. 



When an Indian baby was born, its father and 
mother did not show their tenderness for it as 
yours do. The mother did not wrap the little 
thing in soft, white flannel, or nestle it in her arms, 
and keep the whole family quiet 
while it slept. She wrapped the 
hardy a-bin-o-jee, as it was called, 
in a piece of coarse blanket, or some 
animal's skin, and strapped it upon 
a board, which she carried on her 
back, or hung on a tree while she 
was at work. Yet she seems to 
have taken much pride in ornament- 
ing- this rough cradle, which is 
called tikkinagon. Sometimes she 
trimmed it with beads, bright shells, 
or cloth dyed in gay colors ; some of these bright 
objects were where the baby could see them, or 
play with them. 

Miss Alice Fletcher, a lady who has been among 




Indian Cradle 
Board. 



70 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

the Indians for a long time, says that the a-bin-o- 
jee now-a-days is taken out of its tikkinagon every 
day, to receive its bath, and to frolic with its 
mother, or small brothers and sisters, before it is 
strapped up again out of everyone's way. In 
time it learned to walk. Then the mother often 
carried it " pig-back'' for a while, holding it by 
one hand and one foot. You may think that 
neither of these ways of being carried was com- 
fortable for the little one ; but they were the best 
its mother could do, for she worked hard all the 
time. The brothers and sisters had to work, too. 
The fathers were off hunting and fishing, or at 
their wars. So the babies grew up without much 
attention from any one. 

HAPPY CHILDREN. 

The little Indians were happy children, Mr. 
Schoolcraft said, when writing about them — and 
Mr. Schoolcraft was a man who lived among the 
Indians to learn their ways. It has been said 
that he knew more about them than any other 
white man ever knew. He wrote that they had 
many pleasures, and that the fathers and mothers 
cheerfully went hungry when food was scarce to 
give it to the little ones. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. <1 

Cruel and harsh the Indian was to his enemies, 
but to his friends and his family he was as kind as 
he knew how to be. The children had toys, made 
by their hard-working mothers. Their fathers 
took great care to teach them the things Indians 
thought important to know. Their larger broth- 

FOLLOW MY LEADER. 




*-£P^B 



From Indian Songs collected by Miss Alice G. Fletcher. 
By permission of Peabody Museum. 



ers and sisters taught them games and songs, such 
as " Follow my Leader," in which the little ones 
trot along in time to a song. 



A FATHER'S LOVE FOR HIS SON. 

Mr. Schoolcraft tells this story of Bi-ans-wah: 
In the war between the Chippewas and the 
Foxes, the Foxes captured the son of a celebrated 
and aged chief of the Chippewas, named Bi-ans- 
wah, while the father was absent from his wigwam. 



72 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

On reaching home, the old man heard the heart- 
rending: news, and, knowing what the fate of his 
son would be, he followed on the trail of the enemy 
alone. He reached the Fox villages just as they 
were kindling the fire to roast the son alive. He 
stepped boldly into the arena and offered to take 
his son's place : 

" My son," said he, "has seen but a few win- 
ters ; his feet have never trod the war-path ; but the 
hairs of my head are white ; I have hung many 
scalps over the graves of my relatives, which I 
have taken from the heads of your warriors ; kin- 
dle the fire about me, and send my son home to 
my lodge." The offer was accepted, and the old 
man, without a groan, was burnt at the stake. 

WHEN AN INDIAN CHILD DIED. 

The burial of a child was much simpler than 
that of the warrior ; but the grief of his father and 
mother was very deep. The warrior had won his 
honors on the war-path ; the baby would never 
grow up to have his chance to win them. The pa- 
rents often comforted themselves bv adopting a boy, 
and if no Indian father and mother would give up 
their son, the sad father and mother would steal 
one from the white people on the frontier, not 
thinking of the sorrow they caused, but filled with 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 73 

the one idea that they must have a boy, for all the 
hopes of the Indian family were centred in their 
boys. 

THE SMALL BOYS. 

The father never took care of the baby : but if it 
were a boy, he watched eagerly for the time when 
it could use its first tiny bow and arrow. As soon 
as the Indian boy could toddle about, he was 
taught to handle his little bow, and to shoot birds 
and squirrels. His first game, however small, was 
cooked for a dinner, to which were invited all the 
little man's great relatives — even the chiefs. 

The Indian small boy learned to set traps very 
early, too. Sometimes, of course, they were not 
very well set, but the fathers looked after them, 
and often secretly put animals in, to encourage the 
little fellows to try again. 

Soon the toy bow and arrows were laid aside for 
stronger ones ; but there were many things to 
learn besides merely to shoot. The boy must 
know what birds he should find in May, and what 
ones in October. He was taught the birds' eolors, 
how one differed from another indelicate shades of 
breast and wing, in beak and foot. He learned 
their calls, and the meaning of them, and lie 
watched them until he knew all their habits. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 75 

About animals, he learned in the same way— 
where rabbits and hares burrowed ; in what un- 
derbrush it was easiest to catch them ; and hun- 
dreds of things that all American boys want to 
know to this day. 

By the time the leaves had returned twelve sea- 
sons, which was the way Indians reckoned years, 
the boy usually knew how to make and to use his 
large bow and arrow, how to make canoes and 
quintans, and many other things. He knew how 
to fish and to hunt for large game. Probably he 
had begun to go alone on dangerous undertakings, 
and his father had begun to teach him some of the 
many things a warrior must know. 

HOW QUINTANS WERE MADE. 

Perhaps the boys enjoyed boat-making better 
than anything else except hunting. From this pic- 
ture you can describe their boat-making for your- 
selves. You can see just how the trees were burned 
down near the roots, the branches and the tops 
burned off, leaving logs of the right length for 
boats. The logs were then burned out on one 
side and the charred wood scraped out with 
shells. Then the rude-shaped boats called quin- 
tans were considered ready for use. Besides 
this kind of a boat, the Indians have probably 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 77 

always made canoes of light frames covered with 
bark. 

BOWS AND ARROWS. 

The work of making bows and arrows must have 
taken considerable time. Think of the hundreds 
of arrow-shafts each Indian must have whittled and 
the many arrow-heads he must have chipped out 
of flint and other stone. Some of these were 
poisoned by dipping them into a curious mixture, 
made, so one Englishman said, of fair red apples, 
which were poisonous, and of venemous bats and 
vipers. 

HUNTING AND FISHING 

were important. The boys learned both as they 
grew up, because the life of all depended on them. 
There were no stores then, of course, and no mar- 
kets. Each father was his own hunter and fisher- 
man, butcher and Ashman. The boys began very 
young to fish. In summer they fished from the 
shore or from the canoe. In winter, they fished in 
curious ways ; sometimes through holes in the ice 
with hook and line ; sometimes with a long spear. 
This spear was shaped like a fish on the pointed 
end. The Indian made a hole in the ice, sat down 
beside it, pulled a blanket over himself, head and 



78- INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

all, in order to make the water dark beneath him, 
so that the fish would come up to the make-believe 
fish, suspecting nothing. Then the Indians spear 
would o-o rio-ht through him. These skilful hun- 
ters and fishermen had many tricks to catch their 
game easily or in quantity when they needed much 
of it. Sometimes when they found a herd of deer 
in woods near the shore, they drove the whole herd 
upon some narrow point of land running far into 
the water, and cut off all escape by building a row 
of fires across the neck to the mainland. So they 
kept the herd in a preserve until all the deer that 
were wanted had been shot. 

WHAT DID THE INDIANS EAT ? 

You know that they ate game and fish of all 
kinds, and both fresh and dried. They knew all 
the edible fruits, roots, nuts and other products of 

forest and plains. You 
will find that the first 
S^PP|g|gK0 r Europeans who visited 
Kaus Root is pounded and is mixed in them were interested in 

the water and baked on the fire, each ... 

loaf resting on a stick. Nez Perces In- their maize, Or COm aild 

dians, Idaho. 

the cakes they made with 
it. All the Indians we have any records of have 
used potatoes in many ways. The wild potatoes 
now have curious little roots, no larger than good- 



80 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

sized peanuts. Out of another root the Indians 
have long made a sort of flat, oblong cake, called 
Kaus Bread. The women dry the roots, grind 
them, mix them with water, and then flatten them 
into cakes. The dough must be tough, for a cake 
is baked before the fire, while hanging by two 
sticks run through it, near the centre. You may 
see the holes in the picture. Some people say that 
the red men eat the roots of water-lilies. How do 
you suppose they taste? 

For drink the natives generally used clear water. 
They made a great variety of beverages with the 
berries, leaves and roots they knew. The drinks 
brought by Europeans pleased them better than 
their own. Although rum and whiskey crazed the 
savages and did more than anything else to ruin 
them, yet they would barter anything they had 
for the white man's "fire water," as they called it. 

GOOD TIMES. 

The boys and girls who play Indian seem to 
think the Indians did nothing but scalp their ene- 
mies and steal white people's children. Perhaps 
you know that they did many other things, but 
think it is more fun to play warrior than anything 
else. Or perhaps you do not know much about 
the other interesting things they did. They had 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 81 

many sports and games for the children and the 
grown-up Indians. There was a game of ball on 
the grass. Another, much like hockey, was played 
with sticks on the ice. Lacrosse, the favorite sport 
in Canada, is an Indian game. 

MAPLE SUGAR. 

The making of maple sugar, which is the best 
fun of the year in some parts of New England, is 
an old Indian custom. They held their seensi- 
bankwit, or sugar-making carnival every year, 
all joining in the fun. The children carried the 
sap in pails of bark from the trees to the place 
where it was boiled in o-reat kettles brought 
over by the Europeans.. Perhaps before the 
strangers came they had soapstonc vats or kettles. 
At any rate, no one now knows of a time when the 
Indians did not make delicious maple sugar, and 
when they did not have their " sugaring off 77 every 
spring. 

PLUM-STONES. 

Another game was called plum-stones, because 
it was played with the stones of wild plums. Some 
of them were in their natural state when dried. 
Others were carved and painted with figures of 
birds and animals. Plain stones and decorated 



82 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

stones were put together in a low, round bowl, 
shaken, much as you shake dice in a box for par- 
chesi, and thrown on a smooth skin spread upon 
the ground. The counts in the game were reck- 
oned by the figured stones that fell on the skin 
right side up. 

There is a special song which the winner sings. 

WAR AND WARRIORS. 

The joy of an Indian father was to see his son 
a warrior. For that, he taught the boy to be skil- 
ful and brave, and from the time he gave the tod- 
dler his first little bow and arrow, the Indian's 
rule for his sons was, "never to blame timidity, 
but to praise bravery." 

To take part in a war-dance was the highest 
ambition of every Indian boy ; for when he en- 
tered the circle of warriors, and joined in this 
dance to the music of gourds and rattles, he was 
enlisted for war. To the Indian, the only way to 
honor and distinction was the war-path. 

Our American boys may become great men — 
governors of the states, or presidents of the United 
States, and yet know nothing of war. They may 
be inventors, such as Edison, great business men, 
professors in colleges, judges in high courts ; they 
may win great honors in many ways, without know • 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 83 

ing how to use a gun ; but the only honors for an 
Indian came as rewards for success in war. In 
that way he could win the admiration and respect 
of his tribe and others. In that way he could 
rise to the head of his people, to be their counsel- 
lor, their sachem, or their chief. 

Before the Indian lad could hope to take his one 
path to glory, he had many things to learn. He 
made, as well as used, his bows and arrows. Be- 
sides his hunting, he practiced at a mark until he 
could hit a very small object at a very great dis- 
tance. He learned how warriors took the scalps 
of their enemies, and how they were cured and 
fastened to shields and belts. 

THE WAR-DANCES. 

Hours the Indian lad spent with his brothers 
and cousins practicing the dances which the war- 
riors danced with great skill. When he was about 
sixteen years of age, he was considered old enough 
to go to war, and was allowed to respond to a call 
for warriors among his clan. That was when some 
leader or war-captain, with a club in his hand and 
red paint on his face, gathered the men and youth 
about him to tell them that he wished to raise a 
party to attack some enemy, and would lead all 
who offered to go. This he told partly hi song, 



84 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

partly in short-spoken sentences with piercing yells 
every few minutes, nourishing* his war-club all the 
time, and singing 

AN INDIAN WAR-SONG. 

Hear my voice, ye warlike birds! 
I prepare a feast for you to fatten on; 
I see you cross the enemy's lines ; 
Like you I shall go. 

I wish the swiftness of your wings; 
I wish the vengeance of your claws; 
I muster my friends; 
I follow your flight. 

Ho, ye young men, that are warriors, 
Look with wrath on the battle-field. 

As he sang and shouted, the warriors gathered 
about him to show their willingness to join his 
expedition. This was the chance for the Indian 
lad, and when he stepped to the warriors' circle 
and joined the war-dance, he stepped from boy- 
hood into manhood. 

ON THE WAR-PATH. 

The dance finished, the lad provided himself with 
weapons and food, and went off on the war-path. 
Here his work was cruel, for he not only killed 
his enemies but also cut off the scalp of each one of 
them, flourished it by its long hair, over his head. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 85 

and hung it by his side, where he often looked 
at it with pleasure. Afterward each scalp was 
stretched on a frame to dry and carried about in 
later war-dances and wars. For his success, the 
Indian was allowed to wear feathers in his head, 
differing in kind and number according to his 
triumphs. To wear, an eagle's feather was consid- 
ered the greatest honor. No one could wear such 
a badge unless it was publicly awarded. 

GIRLS AND WOMEN. 

While the Indian men were on the war-path, or 
hunting and fishing, the women did many kinds 
of work which we expect men to do. The girls 
began very young to help their mothers. They 
cooked and sewed and kept their wigwams in 
order. This was not what we would call house- 
keeping. They never swept ; they had nothing 
like our furniture. The floor, upon which the fam- 
ily sat, slept and ate, was very dirty, and swarmed 
with insects ; but no one minded that. The women 
cut and hauled the wood for the fires, which in 
summer were outside the wigwams, while in win- 
ter they were inside, for both warmth and cooking. 

Both boys and girls helped their mothers in 
planting the corn and tobacco, considering it a 
great frolic, 



86 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

AFTER THE GAME WAS SHOT. 

Some of the hardest work the women did was to 
fetch home the large game.. After the hunter had 
shot his deer or bear, he sometimes turned his back 
on it, broke a branch from some tree near by, to 
make a trail of its leaves, and strode off to his 
wigwam. On reaching home, he gave a leaf of 
his trail to his wife or squaw. She and some 
other women and girls of the family followed the 
leaf-trail till they found the game, which they 
carried home. They skinned it, took out the sinews 
for their sewing and other purposes, cut up the 
meat and cooked it. The skin they stretched on a 
rough frame to dry. Then they cured it, and 
made it up into shirts or breeches, perhaps, and 
the smaller pieces into moccasins. 

EMBROIDERY AND POTTERY-MAKING. 

The girls began when young to embroider 
with brightly-polished shells, pebbles, and bits of 
mica, until real beads were brought them by the 
traders from Europe. Can you imagine how de- 
lighted they were with the bright-colored glass 
beads, and with bright-red flannel? 

The making of dishes for cooking, and of vases 
or jars for carrying water, was women's work, too. 
Often these toiling mothers and big sisters made 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



87 



earthen ducks, with seeds or pebbles inside, for the 
babies to play with, and sometimes they made queer, 
animal-shaped dishes for the older children, some- 
what like the bear-jug and duck-dish found in the 
grave of the mound-builder's child. Probably the 
children soon learned to make these dishes by 
watching their mothers and trying by themselves. 
If you have clay-modeling at school, you can try 
to make some of these duck-dishes and bear-jugs 
for yourselves. 



INDIAN BURIALS. 

When the Indian father saw his son become an 
honored warrior, he was ready to leave this world 
and go, as he said, to the " happy hunting ground." 
He felt that the most important work of his life 
was accomplished. 

After he died, his 
body was dressed in 
new skins of animals 
or a blanket ; new 
moccasins were put 
on his feet ; and the 
feathers which he 

had won the rio'ht in war to wear were placed on 
body was wrapped in cloth 




Scaffold Burial. 



Then t 



his head. 

or bark. In some parts of the country the Indians 



88 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

were buried in graves, but not deeply, and were 
protected by branches and stones. Sometimes the 
body was put into a canoe with another canoe fitted 
closely over it. At other times the corpse was laid 
upon a platform, raised high enough from the 
ground to be out of the reach of do°:s or wild ani- 
mals. There was need to protect the dead body 
from animals, but not from other Indians, for they 
would not disturb the dead of even their enemies. 
The warrior's arms were laid beside him, and after 
they began to have horses, his war-steed, too, was 
killed and left at the grave, so that the warrior 
might have him in the next life. Food was left 
near the grave, and sometimes a bundle of sticks, 
showing how many ponies he had given away. 
These, with other odd decorations, told the passer- 
by what honors the Indian warrior had in life. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 89 



CHAPTER VI. 

PIONEERS FROM EUROPE. 

You know how often little children wonder if 
there are people in the moon. Perhaps you have 
longed to go to it yourselves to find who lived there. 
Perhaps there is some lonely road which runs over 
a hill or is lost in a wood, where you have never 
been allowed to a*o, but which vou have wished to 
see and about which you have had all sorts of fan- 
cies. Perhaps you have imagined all kinds of ani- 
mals which might tear you in pieces, and men who 
might treat you cruelly. Still you have dreamed 
of lovely things which might be there and, in spite 
of fear, have wished to go in search of them. Can 
each one of you remember some such ideas and 
feelings about strange places? 

OLD IDEAS ABOUT THE EARTH. 

The people in Europe in the fifteenth century 
used to have these same strange fancies about the 
far-off land to the west across the Atlantic Ocean. 
There had been a time when people did not imagine 
that there was any other land besides their own. 



90 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

The earth they thought to be a flat surface, some- 
thing the shape of a large shield. Some believed 
there was one large ocean surrounding the land 
they knew. Others thought there was an edge 
or rim of land outside the surrounding waters, 
which was joined on all sides by the sky fitting 
over it like a big dome. Some men said that the 
earth was of a much more beautiful, perfect shape; 
it was not a plane, but a sphere. Then they began 
to think that if it were round a man could travel 
around it as a fly can walk around an apple. For 
centuries these ideas were merely talked about, 
Then for several centuries more they were nearly 
forgotten. They were written on rolls of parch- 
ment, which were the books of those days ; but 
those books were hidden away and known only to 
a few great scholars. 

TRAVEL TO THE HOLY LAND. 

A custom had grown up among the Christians 
of Europe of making pilgrimages to Jerusalem. 
Men and women wanted to visit the sacred spots 
where Christ had lived and died. They were often 
hindered and harmed by the Turks and Saracens 
who lived in and about the Holy Land. These 
were heathen, whom the Christians of Europe 
wished to conquer and convert. For this, large 



92 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

military expeditions, called crusades, were under- 
taken, as early as 1100, by the great warriors and 
humble peasants of all parts of Europe. Thousands 
went armed to the Holy Land to snatch the sacred 
places from the heathen Turks and Saracens. 

While there, the Europeans became used to the 
Oriental luxuries which these people had gotten 
from the people living still further to the east. 

ORIENTAL LUXURIES. 

These Orientals had beautiful silks, linens, jew- 
els, ivories, fine spices, delicious dried fruits, and 
many other luxuries that Europeans delighted in. 
Indeed, the people of the West liked these things 
so much that merchants soon began to send for 
them. They sent out parties of traders in large 
caravans, with camels and horses. They soon 
opened regular routes of travel for their trade 
from India and from China. In the early part of 
the fifteenth century these trade routes were closed 
by the Turks, who took possession of the country 
through which the caravans passed, and refused to 
allow the Europeans to enter it. 

THE WESTERN PASSAGE. 

Then the most learned and the most enterpris- 
ing men of Europe tried to think of some other 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 93 

way to get the silks and spices from the Orient to 
Europe. Every one talked of a new route to the 
East. Geographers and navigators began to ex- 
amine the old books and maps, and to think that 
if the world was round, perhaps they could find 
India or Cathay by sailing westward out of the 
Mediterranean Sea, and across the western or At- 
lantic Ocean. Merchant sailors from Venice, in 
Italy, had passed out of the Mediterranean, through 
the narrow straits of Gibraltar, and, after passing 
beyond the shores of Portugal and France, had 
found their way to the ports of England. 

Portuguese sailors, inspired by their king, Henry 
the Navigator, had crept gradually down along 
the shores of Africa, discovered the coast and 
the islands, and returned in safety. 

Most people, however, believed the stories that 
had been handed down for centuries, about horri- 
ble monsters that lived in the western waters. 
Mothers and wives were filled with terror when 
their sons and husbands talked of sailing out upon 
this unknown ocean, which was called the Sea of 
Darkness. The men, too, were superstitious. They 
believed that all sorts of impossible things might 
happen. Yet enough sailors to man a fleet could 
generally be found for almost any undertaking. 
Love of adventure was strong in the hearts of the 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 95 

descendants of the Teuton people, who once lived 
in the forests of Germany, fighting wild beasts and 
delighting* in stories of how their wonderful ances- 
tors killed dragons and all sorts of monsters that 
guarded hoards of gold in dark and enchanted 
caves. It was the hope of finding treasure as much 
as love of adventure that induced the sailors of the 
fifteenth century to ship on voyages of discovery 
across the Sea of Darkness. 



1492 1506. 

The greatest men of that age were the leaders 
of these voyages, the men who could take the re- 
sponsibility of the ship's course in strange waters, 
who could command the crew, whose hearts were 
above fear and despair when even their bravest 
men lost hope, begged to go back, and finally 
threatened the lives of their commanders if the 
fleets were not turned homeward. Such men of 
ability and courage were found in every nation of 
Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies ; but he who came first of all was the great 
admiral, Christopher Columbus. 

The world knows little of his life. We do not 
know how he looked. You often see pictures and 
statues of him, but they show merely what his face 



96 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

and figure were supposed to be by painters and 
sculptors of later times. So you may all picture 
him for yourselves, while you read of what he did. 
He was born, a poor boy, at Genoa, in Italy, at 
about 1435. His father, who was probably a wool- 
comber, gave his boy " the ordinary schooling of 
his time and a touch of university life." At four- 
teen he became a sailor. This was an exciting life 
for the lad, and the quieter work of selling books 
at Genoa some time later must have made him rest- 
less for the sea again. Yet this may have given 
him an opportunity to study old maps and read 
books written by old geographers. He knew 
their theories of the size and shape of the earth. He 
made himself master, also, of the newest theories 
and arts of navigation in his own times. Perhaps 
he made maps and charts with his older brother. 
After that he went to Portugal, and from there he 
made several short voyages ; but we shall not follow 
them. 

HIS GREAT AIM. 

We shall follow Columbus only in the one 
o^reat aim of his life. This was to cross the west- 
era seas and reach the Orient. He asked many 
great people to help him do it, and was laughed 
at in answer ; but, at last, Queen Isabella and 
King Ferdinand of Spain took an interest in him. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 97 

They borrowed money to fit out a fleet, and gave 
him royal authority, as their great admiral, to sail 
westward and discover new lands for Spain. The 
joy of Columbus was so great that he promised to 
spend his share in the profits of his discoveries in 
another crusade to secure the holy places in Jeru- 
salem. His little son, Diego, was made a page in 
the king's household, and then Columbus went to 
the seaport, Palos where the king had ordered 
three vessels to be prepared for him. 

The people of Palos did not receive Columbus 
kindly. They did not like his undertaking to cross 
the broad Atlantic Ocean. He had a hard time to 
persuade sailors to go out with him. They were sure 
that they would be eaten by monsters or sail off 
the edge of the world. With the help of two 
friends named Pinzon, the admiral made up his 
small fleet of three vessels, fitted them out with 
food and all necessary provisions, and at last found 
men enough for their crews. They set sail August 3, 
1492. Columbus was in command of the fleet and 
of the largest vessel, the Santa Maria. The Pinzon 
brothers were in charge of the two other vessels, the 
Nina and the Pinta, which were smaller, and called 
caravels. All of the captains believed that if they 
came to land across the Atlantic it would be on some 
unknown eastern shore of Asia, the land of spices. 



98 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

Columbus first went down to the Canary Islands 
oft the west coast of Africa. They were known to 
him. He believed that they were about opposite 
India. So he took his westward course from them. 
When the fleet left the Canaries it was indeed on 
an unknown sea. Day and night it sailed, and it 
passed out of sight of land, a fact which frightened 
the sailors as much as the big waves did. Everyone 
knows that the waves of the Atlantic dip and rise 
until they sometimes seem like mountains in height. 
The sailors soon began to grumble. As day after 
day passed with no sign of land, the men lost all 
hope. They threatened mutiny. Then they utterly 
refused to do their work unless the admiral would 
turn back. In all these difficulties Columbus was 
steadfast in his purpose. He was determined that 
nothing should turn him from it. He told the men 
so. He was commander by order of the king and 
queen, and he would be obeyed. He wished to 
keep straight on. If he had done so, he would 
have found the northern continent, probably near 
the mouth of what we call Delaware Bay. 

THE NEW LAND. 

On the Pinzon brothers' advice, the Admiral 
altered the course to a southerly direction, and by 
that means, in the early morning of the 12th of 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 99 

October, a mariner on the Pinta saw a small 
island of the Bahama group. The natives called it 
Guanahani, Columbus said ; he named it San Sal- 
vador, which is Spanish for Holy Savior. From 
there the discoverers went to the much larger 
island which Columbus called Juana, and we know 
as Cuba; then to Hayti, which was named His- 
paniola or Little Spain. There they anchored. 
One of the fleet was wrecked on the coast of this 
island, and Columbus used her timbers to build a 
fort, which he called La Navidad. 

On his way back to Spain, Columbus wrote a 
letter to Santangel, a man who had loaned to Fer- 
dinand and Isabella much of the money they spent 
in fitting out the fleet. The letter began : 

"Sir — As I know you will be rejoiced at the 
glorious success that our Lord has given me in my 
voyage, I write this to tell you how, in thirty-three 
days, I sailed to the Indies. 

4 ' It has many ports along the sea-coast, and many 
fine, large, flowing rivers. The land there is ele- 
vated, with many mountains and peaks. They are 
most beautiful, of a thousand varied forms, acces- 
sible, and full of trees of endless varieties, so high 
that they seem to touch the sky, and I have been 
told that they never lose their foliage. . . . The 
nightingale, and other small birds of a thousand 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 101 

kinds, were singing in the month of November, 
when I was there. . . . There are wonderful pine 
trees, and very extensive ranges of meadow land. 
There is honey, and a great variety of fruits. In- 
land there are numerous mines of metals, and in- 
numerable people. 

" There are many spices and vast mines of gold 
. . . in this island. ... I have found no monsters, as 
some expected; but, on the contrary, they are people 
of very handsome appearance." " Hispaniola is a 

marvel." 

THE NEWS IN SPAIN. 

The discovery was received in Spain as the most 
wonderful news that ever was heard. Columbus 
was then the Great Admiral to every one, and the 
hero of the world. Ferdinand and Isabella re- 
ceived him at court, as you see in the picture. 
They received him with high honors, seated upon 
their thrones, wearing their crowns, dressed in 
their royal robes of state, with their courtiers in 
attendance — all to hear the story of his voyage, 
and his discoveries, and to see what he had brought 
back with him. All marveled most at the natives 
he had coaxed or tricked to come aboard his ship. 
Such people had never been seen nor heard of be- 
fore. Since they came from India they were 
called Indians, though they were unlike the peo- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 103 

pie of East India, except that both were dark- 
skinned and heathen. The western Indians were 
savages, with straight, black hair and uncouth 
manners ; they wore odd -looking* garments, and 
were decorated with feathers and paint. 

We can easily imagine how the king and queen 
and the people of Spain talked about these won- 
ders and the new land. Think of the women of 
Palos, who had been opposed to the voyage. How 
much they had to " take back," as they talked about 
it at their marketing, and in their homes. Many vis- 
its were made, for the purpose, no doubt, of discus- 
sing the wonderful reports. All the sailors who 
had gone on the Voyage returned heroes, even if 
they had done their utmost to ruin the expedition, 
and had threatened to kill the admiral unless he 
turned back long before the new land was found. 

Not many years before this the art of printing 
had been discovered. The story of Columbus's voy- 
age was printed and sent out over Europe, a double 
wonder, for people were as eager to see a piece of 
print as they were to learn of the West Indies. 

As the news spread throughout Europe, all the 
great navigators wanted to join Columbus, or to 
follow his example in ventures of their own. The 
sailors of every port had lost all fear of the Sea of 
Darkness. " Now," he wrote, '" there is not a man, 



104 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

down to the very tailors, who does not beg to be 
allowed to become a discoverer. 7 ' 

THE SECOND VOYAGE. 

It was easy to man and fit out a second expedi- 
tion, although it was a fleet of seventeen vessels. 
Ferdinand and Isabella decided to plant a colony 
in Little Spain, and twelve hundred people sailed 
with the great admiral in September, 1494. 

When Columbus reached Hispaniola he found 
his fort, La Navidad, in ruins ; but he set his men to 
work at once to build a town, which he called Isa- 
bella. Other men gathered products of the islands, 
which were sent back, with some natives, in the col- 
onists' ships. Still others began to hunt for gold. 
Columbus had made everyone believe as he did, 
that large quantities of gold would be found with 
little trouble. Too eager to await the results of 
their own labor, the colonists set the natives at 
work digging in what they called their mines. 
They were hard task-masters, and as the digging 
went on and no gold was found, they grew harsher 
and more cruel to the Indians. 

ANGER OF THE NATIVES. 

The Indians, for their part, resented this treat- 
ment from the strangers. The savages had given 






Kuins of La Navidau. 



106 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

the white men a kindly welcome. It was their 
custom to do all in their power for their guests; 
but to give generously in hospitality was one thing, 
and to have their guests make slaves of them was 
quite another. They were not used to such hard 
work as this. They showed that they did not wish 
to do it. When the Spaniards drove them to it, 
they began to dislike their visitors. Soon they 
began to show their dislike, and to take measures 
to protect themselves. 

Columbus left the colonists with their mines, while 
he continued his voyage among: the other islands. 
Before he had seen all that he intended to see there, 
his crew grew so discontented that he went back 
to Hispaniola, only to find worse discontentment 
there. Many of the colonists had gone back to 
Spain, angry that they had found no gold, and 
that the natives did not remain friendly. They 
blamed Columbus for both these disappointments, 
and went home to complain of him to the king 
and queen. Columbus followed them as soon as 
possible, and found Ferdinand and Isabella still 
his friends. They promised to send him on a third 
voyage, but the preparations were delayed time 
after time, and Columbus saw that interest in his 
discovery was dying out. " The new-found world 
was thought to be a very poor India, after all," 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 107 

It is said that a crowd called after the sons of 
Columbus, "Look at the sons of the Admiral of 
Mosquitoland, the man who has discovered the 
lands of deceit and disappointment ! ,? 

THE THIRD VOYAGE. 

Columbus himself was not disheartened. He 
raised a new fleet. In May, 1498, he sailed again. 
This voyage took him to the mainland for the first 
time — the mainland of South America. Still he 
thought it India. He also visited his islands again. 
At Hayti, his brother Diego was in command of a 
fortified colony, but that, too, was a colony of dis- 
appointed gold-seekers. When Columbus arrived 
there both he and Diego were seized, put in chains, 
and sent to Spain as prisoners. In Spain and the 
colonies, too, by this time, the great admiral had 
many jealous enemies who made charges against 
him before the king and queen. But Ferdinand and 
Isabella and every one at court were sorry to see 
their great sea-hero in such distress. The king of- 
fered to grant the admiral almost any request. Co- 
lumbus most desired to go out to his West Indies 
again, with full powers as governor, or to lead 
his promised crusade to Jerusalem. Neither of 
these requests could the king grant, but he could 
send the admiral to add to his discoveries. 




Columbus on Deck. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 109 

THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 

With a new fleet, Columbus started on his last 
expedition in May, 1502. This time he touched 
at what we call Central America. Honduras was 
discovered by the help of a rough map of the main 
shore, made by an old Indian whom Columbus 
took on board with him. On this voyage the ad- 
miral was ill, but his men carried his bed to the 
deck so that he could see the country and could 
send his men ashore in likely places. How happy 
he must have been when they told him that Hon- 
duras was a rich and beautiful country where the 
natives wore gold on their necks. Along that coast 
he sailed southward, till only the little strip of 
country, which you see on your map, separated 
the discoverers from the great Pacific Ocean whose 
farthest waves washed his desired India. He 
followed the coast of this neck, which we call 
Panama, turned eastward as it joined the southern 
continent, and then left it to return to the island 
colonies. 

Columbus was then in deep distress. He was ill, 
his ships were worm-eaten and out of repair. He 
and his crews needed many things. He appealed 
to the colonists to relieve him ; but they were in- 
different and stingy. He wrote to his king : "I 
was twenty-eight years old when I came into your 



110 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

Highnesses' service, and now I have not a hair 
upon me that is not grey : my body is infirm, and 
all that was left to me, as well as to my brothers, 
lias been taken away and sold, even to the frock 
which I wore. ... I cannot but believe that this 
was done without your royal permission." 

LONELY DAYS IN SPAIN. 

At length, in the autumn of 1504, the discoverer 
of the New World sailed back to Spain for the last 
time. 

There all was changed. Queen Isabella was dead. 
Ferdinand was occupied with many cares. The 
great admiral was too ill to present himself at 
court, and the court left him alone in his trouble. 
Columbus watched and waited for some signs of 
favor until, after about two years, he died. That 
was in 150(3. We do not know where he was 
buried. "With him, during his last, sad days, was 
his son Diego, who had once been a page in the 
king's palace. No doubt he was proud of his father, 
even though the old sea-hero was dvin°f broken- 
hearted. How much prouder he would have been 
if he had known all Columbus had achieved ! 

Much of the trouble which Columbus had to suf- 
fer he had brought upon himself by telling such 
extravagant stories of his discoveries that people 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. Ill 

who risked their lives and spent all their fortunes 
to go out to the new lands were bitterly disap- 
pointed. It is said that he was harsh with his sailors 
and colonists. But in those days nearly all story- 
tellers Avere extravagant and nearly all command- 
ers were harsh. Columbus's discovery was the most 
glorious event of his time. Many mean persons were 
jealous of him, and they injured his fame. Perhaps 
they helped to turn the favor of the king against 
him ; but if you read the history of Spain in those 
days, you will see that Ferdinand had a great many 
serious things to think of beside the admiral, for 
whom he had done so much and whose discoveries 
had cost the kingdom many fortunes, but had not 
led to the riches of India or Cathay. 

You sometimes hear people say it is unjust that 
the New World was not named for Columbus; but 
it was not thought of as a new country until after 



i & 



7 



Columbus was dead. He, and everyone of his time, 
believed that he had found merely the coast of 
India. 



112 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PIONEERS OF THE NORTHERN CONTINENT, 
1000-1400. 

Norsemen are said to have visited the northern 
continent of the New World long before Columbus 
discovered the West Indies. The Norsemen were 
bold sailors from the northern parts of Europe. 
They followed the sea as pirates, and were called 
vikings, not because they were kings, but because 
they made their headquarters in the deep viks or 
bays on the northern coast. Their songs, called 
sagas, tell of their voyages to a beautiful land, 
where they saw grapes in plenty and self-sown 
wheat. We do not know that they came to the 
shores of America, but many people believe that 
they did. They were venturesome voyagers. 
They certainly went from Norway to Icelend, from 
Iceland to Greenland, and from Greenland to Yin- 
land. No one really knows just where Vinland was, 
but most people think it was somewhere along the 
New England coast. Sometimes they sailed into 
unknown waters to see what new land they could 
find. Oftener, their frail ships were blown to 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 113 

strange shores by the heavy winds of the north 
Atlantic. 

They believed that all the places they visited 
were some new parts of Europe. That was not 
strange, for their own country, which they called 
Scandinavia, was a peninsula of Europe far from 
the mainland and cut into many parts by broad 
bays and rivers. 

JOHN CABOT, ENGLAND'S PIONEER, 
1497. 

England claims that the northern continent was 
discovered by John Cabot, under the flag of King 
Henry VII. This Cabot, like Columbus, was born in 
Genoa. For many years he was a citizen of Venice, 
a beautiful city on the eastern coast of Italy, where 
many merchant-sailors lived and carried on an im- 
mense trade in the Mediterranean and Atlantic 
ports as far as England. From Venice, Cabot went 
to England, where he lived with his wife and sons 
in the famous seaport of Bristol. He was a skilled 
navigator, well taught in the geography of those 
days. He was one of the few men who believed, as 
Columbus did, in the roundness of the earth. 

The news of the first voyage of Columbus made 
Cabot wish to follow up his countryman's discov- 
ery as soon as possible. Bristol is on the Atlantic 
side of England, and we can imagine that 'the 



114 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

Venetian," as he was called, often stood upon the 
shore, looking out on the ocean, impatient to be the 
next to give Europe news of its waves touching 
India. In March, 1497, before the great admiral's 
third expedition was ready. Cabot, and probably 
some of his merchant friends in Bristol, had 
equipped the ship Maihew for a voyage, under the 
king's authority. Henry VII. put no money into 
the enterprise, but he gave his commission, or pat- 
ent, " unto John Cabot and his three sonnes, Lewis, 
Sebastian and Sancius, . . . for the discoverie of new 
and unknown lands." His majesty was to receive, 
"in wares or money, the fifth part of the capital 
gain so gotten." 

THE DISCOVERY OF CAPE BRETON. 

The little Matkew had a long voyage ; but, June 
24, 1497, she came to land. Some think that 
Cape Breton Island was the first part of the coast 
Cabot saw, and that he explored the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence. Others say that he entered Hudson's 
Bay. Be this as it may, the English claim that he 
crossed the north Atlantic, saw land, and returned 
to Bristol after about three months. In August, a 
Venetian, living in London at that time, wrote to 
his brother in Venice : | 

' ' Our countryman, who went, with a ship from 



EARLIEST DAYS IX AMERICA. 115 

Bristol, in quest of new islands, is returned. . . . 
The king- has promised that in the spring he shall 
have ten ships (armed to his order). . . . The king 
has also given him money, wherewith to amuse 
himself till then, and he is now at Bristol, with his 
wife, who is also Venetian, and with his sons ; his 
name is Juan Cabot, and he is styled the great ad- 
miral. Vast honour is paid him ; he dresses in silk, 
and these English run after him like mad people, so 
that he can enlist as many of them as he pleases. . . . 
The discoverer of these places planted on his new- 
found land a large cross, with one flag* of England 
and another of St. Mark, by reason of his being a Ve- 
netian, so that our banner has floated very far afield." 

Cabot, like Columbus, thought he had found the 
eastern coast of Asia. Of course every one in Eu- 
rope thought so, too. Another Italian wrote from 
London to Milan, a city in Italy : 

"Perhaps . . . it may not displease you to learn 
how his Majesty here has won a part of Asia with- 
out a stroke of the sword. The said Master John, as 
being foreign-born and poor, would not be believed 
if his comrades, who are almost all Englishmen and 
from Bristol, did not testify that what he says is 
true. This Master John has the description of the 
world in a chart and also in a solid gdobe, which he 
has made . . . ; they affirm that the sea is covered 



116 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

with fishes, which are caught not only with the net 
but with baskets, a stone being tied to them, in or- 
der that the baskets may sink into water . . . But 
Master John has set his mind on something greater : 
for he expects to go farther on toward the east 
from that place already occupied, constantly hug- 
ging the shore, until he shall be over against an 
island by him called Cipango. where he thinks all 
the spices of the world, and also the precious stones, 
originate." 

CABOT'S SECOND VOYAGE. 

It is said that Cabot, or his son Sebastian, made 
another voyage with a fleet furnished by the King 
in the next year, and that the mainland was then 
discovered ; that they coasted for many miles along 
the shores of New England. 

Both Columbus and Cabot would have been 
sorry to know that they had not found India, but, 
instead, new continents peopled by savages who 
were in no way related to the skilful silk-weavers 
and jewel-workers of India. 

AMERIGO VESPUCCI, 
1497 or 1499-1512. 

The new country was to be named after Amerigo 
Vespucci, a man who was deeply interested in the 
great admiral's voyages, and wanted to cross the 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 117 

ocean himself as soon as possible. Some say that 
he sailed so soon that he was the first to see the 
southern continent, in 1497. 

Vespucci was born in Florence, not very far from 
Genoa. Among- the many stories of his life is one 
which describes him in Seville, employed by the men 
who fitted out the ships of Columbus for a third 
voyage. A letter of his own, written some time 
later, tells that he was far away from Spain at that 
time. It says that he was returning home from the 
West Indies on a voyage for Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella, in which he had found the coast of the south- 
ern continent near the mouth of the Orinoco River. 
If that is true, Amerigo Vespucci and neither Co- 
lumbus nor Cabot was the first European to find 
the mainland of the New World. There is no ac- 
count of this voyage in the public records of Spain. 
Later, in 1499, however, Vespucci was pilot for 
Ojeda, a Spaniard who visited Trinidad the same 
year that Columbus saw that island. 

Some time after that, this Florentine voyager 
wrote an interesting little book, which was an ac- 
count of his four journeys to the " New Land." 

THE LAND IS CALLED AMERICA. 

In 1507 a new geography was made at the Uni- 
versity of St, -Die, a little town in the Vosges 



118 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

mountains near the river Rhine. In the back of 
the new geography were copies of Vespucci's let- 
ters on his four journeys. The learned doctor who 
made the geography called attention to the letters 
and how much they added to the Europeans' 
knowledge of the world. 

He said : "Now truly, as these regions are more 
widely explored and another fourth part is dis- 
covered by Americus Vesputius, as may be learned 
from the following letters, I see no reason why it 
should not justly be called ' America.' ' 

All Europe was interested in the additions which 
had been made to the knowledge of the world. 
There was much interest, also, in the new style of 
books printed from type. That wonderful little 
new geography, from the university town in the 
mountains between France and Germany, must 
have had a large circulation for its day. The 
people who read it liked the learned doctor's sug- 
gestion of giving the new land a name of its own. 
So, without the aid of Vespucci, or even his knowl- 
edge, perhaps, all Europe began to talk of America. 

Amerigo waked one day to find himself famous. 
The king of Spain made him "pilot-major" of the 
kingdom. People talked to him and about him 
and of his wonderful discoveries. 

Florence was delighted that such a great man 




Amerigo Vespucci. 



120 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

should be a Florentine. This is a picture of a statue 
raised there in his honor. There were people who 
did not believe that he had told the truth, and who 
thought it was wrong to give his name to the new- 
found parts of India. Perhaps they were jealous, 
perhaps they honestly thought so. 

Whether Amerigo deserved to have a continent 
named for him or not. is still undecided. After 
all, you will agree that you like the name of 
America and that you can admire Columbus and 
Cabot just as much, if your native country does 
not bear their names. 

WHAT ATTRACTED OTHER PIONEERS. 

After the New World was discovered at the 
close of the fifteenth century, what do you think 
attracted thousands of adventurers to it during the 
sixteenth century ? The motives for voyages of 
discovery in this century were many and varied ; 
so were the attractions the new country contained. 

The sailors of the Levant, who were the ablest 
seamen of Europe in that day, seemed suddenly to 
have outgrown the Mediterranean Sea. Yovao-es 
to England, and down the west coast of Africa, 
seemed to be child's play, when men and ships 
could breast the high waves of the Atlantic, and 
come back, not only alive, but with wild Indians, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 121 

• 

strange animals, brilliant birds, and many other 

curiosities. Moreover, every one believed that the 

new land contained untold treasures, and that the 

riches of India and Cathay lay not far from the 

coast. 

A SEPARATE CONTINENT. 

Before this sixteenth century was half over they 
learned that South America, at least, was a land 
wholly separate from the Orient. Then they grew 
only the more confident that India must lie but a 
short distance beyond. The great object was to 
find the strait which led across the New World to 
the Old. In that quest the explorers found much 
that they were not looking for. Within the first half 
century after the discovery, the people of Europe 
thought they knew a great deal about America. 
Of the southern continent much was known, be- 
cause the Spaniards went there with small armies, 
and conquered the native peoples of Mexico, Peru, 
and Brazil. 

The northern continent had no such great na- 
tions to conquer. The armies that went there were 
lost in thickets and swamps. The people of Europe 
talked of Florida and Norumbega, of Canada, 
Hochelaga, and the New Found Land, in the most 
vague way, not knowing much about their position 
or boundaries, 



122 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

HOW GLORY WAS WON IN AMERICA. 

The vast amount of land, and the possibilities of 
all it might contain, attracted hundreds of explor- 
ers to risk their lives. To face danger was an 
honor in those days, especially to go out into un- 
known danger. It was an honor, also, to plant a 
king's standard in a strange land, and to claim the 
right to add a big piece of even unexplored terri- 
tory to a royal dominion. Kings and queens re- 
warded such service, as it was called, with titles 
of nobility, with large tracts of the new dominion, 
and often with large powers as governor over col- 
onies there. The proudest man in those days was 
he who went to his sovereign with the most mar- 
velous stories about America, and of his own prow- 
ess in conquering the natives for the glory of his 
king and his religion. 

A FRENCHMAN'S DESCRIPTION. 

One of the French explorers of this time wrote 
a long letter about what he saw. He said : 

" We entered and viewed the country, which is 
the fairest, fruitfulest, and pleasantest of all the 
world, abounding in honey, wax. venison, wild 
fowl, forests, woods of all sorts, palm-trees, cy- 
presses, cedars, bays, the highest and greatest, 
with also the fairest vines in all the world, with 



124 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

grapes according-, which naturally, without art or 
man's help or trimming, will grow to tops of oaks 
and other trees that be of wonderful greatness and 
heierht. . . . Also there are silkworms in marvelous 
number, a great deal fairer and better than our 
silkworms. 

"The natives showed us by signs that they had 
in the land gold and silver and copper, whereof we 
have brought some home." 

How much of this account was true we shall find 
out as we go on with our stories. Then it was 
all believed and constantly repeated. 

The kings took as great an interest in these 
things as did the people. If Spain was increasing 
her dominion, England must do the like, and so 
must France. So the rivalry of kings spurred on 
the explorers. 

VERRAZANO, 

1524. 

France, as well as Spain and England, sent an 
Italian navigator to the New World. This was Ver- 
razano, a Florentine like Amerigo Vespucci. You 
can remember that the two C's were born in 
Genoa, and the two Ys in Florence. Verrazano 
had been a brave seaman under the French flag 
for man}- years before King Francis I. heard of his 
daring on the Spanish Main. All of Spain's enemies 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 125 

in those days sent out armed vessels to capture her 
treasure-ships on their way home from their con- 
quests in South America. That part of the Atlan- 
tic sailed by these treasure-ships was called the 
Spanish Main. 

When Francis I. saw Spain and England laying 
their claims to America, he said he should like to 
see France take a share ; and when he heard of the 
bold and skilful corsair, Verrazano, his majesty 
sent for him at once. The king gave him the 
Dauphin, with fifty men, and food and provisions 
for eight months, and told him to take possession of 
some part of the New World in the name of France. 

Verrazano left France in 1524. He reached our 
coast near Cape Fear, in what is now North Caro- 
lina, First he sailed southward, as near the shore 
as possible, in search of a good harbor ; but find- 
ing" nothing to suit him, he returned and went 
northward. Then he explored what we know as 
Raleigh Bay, New York Harbor and Newport Har- 
bor, and many other places, until he reached Cape 
Breton. From there he sailed back to France. 
England claimed that the Cabots had explored this 
coast, or part of it ; but they showed no maps till 
fifty years after the Cabot voyage. Verrazano 
was the first to make it known to Europe. On 
board the Dauphin he wrote a letter to Francis I., 



L26 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

in which he described the waters and the lands he 
had visited, the people, their dress and manners, and 
many other things besides. He believed that vast 
treasure was to be found inland. 

The letter has been criticized ever since it was 
written, three centuries and a half ago. Some 
people have always doubted the truth of the state- 
ments ; but they have never been disproved. Ver- 
razano's letter was an inspiration to young* navi- 
gators for nearly a century, and it is quoted to 
this day by the most learned writers on America. 
Many of the interesting things about the early In- 
dians which you have read in this book are taken 
from it. 

With the exception of an attempt at settlement 
near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and one 
in South Carolina at Port Royal, France put her 
energy into colonizing the region to the north 
about the St. Lawrence River, where the prospects 
were good for fur trade, and about Nova Scotia, 
where the fisheries would well repay any efforts. 

In 1534 Jacques Cartier had attempted a settle- 
ment at Montreal, and another at Quebec in 1541. 
Although these were not permanent, they proved 
to be germs of later colonies. Champlain founded 
a settlement, in 1608, at Quebec, which grew and 
flourished. About the banks of New Newfound- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 12' 



land the French fishermen had gathered from the 
very beginning of the sixteenth century. In the 
early years of the seventeenth century they built 
a Port Royal in what the English called Nova 
Scotia. 

WHAT THE PIONEERS ACCOMPLISHED. 

Before we leave the early voyagers, who ex- 
plored the shores of both North and South America 
on both the eastern and western sides, let us stop 
to see a little of what they accomplished. 

Columbus, the great pioneer and daring sailor, 
proved that the earth was round, and gave courage 
to hundreds to follow him. 

Vespucci gained more exact knowledge, and fur- 
nished a name for the new land. 

Yerrazano secured to the French a claim which 
gave impulse to the great French pioneers, Jacques 
Cartier and Champlain. 

Pizarro, Coronado, Balboa and Cortez gave the 
most thrilling accounts of a richer and more 
civilized people than any others had found in the 
New World. 

While Spain was still in hopes of finding more 
rich cities and treasure, her soldiers and priests 
had established missions among the Pueblos. You 
will remember where these people lived and about 



128 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

their odd houses. In the very centre of the Pueblo 
region Saute Fe was settled, and in time the mis- 
sions stretched in a long* chain to the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia on the Pacific coast. 

Before the middle of the sixteenth century many 
hundreds of Spanish soldiers and colonists held 
South and Central America. Pizarro had won vast 
amounts of treasure and gold in Peru, and Cortez 
in Mexico. After that it was for treasure that 
Spanish kings sent Spanish soldiers to America. 
Their motto was "To the South for gold." This 
led them to turn away from the northern country, 
where the fur trade in time would have brought 
them wealth, and from the fields where Indian corn 
might be raised by hard and constant work. 

The old records tell of many Spanish forts 
and missions, started in what is now the United 
States: and how several French settlements were 
destroyed by the Spaniards. The oldest town in 
our country is of their building. That is St. 
Augustine, which was settled in 1565. 

Many daring English sailors visited North Amer- 
ica in the sixteenth century. Hawkins, Drake, Gil- 
bert and Frobisher roved the seas and explored 
the coasts, while Richard Hakluyt, at home, gath- 
ered carefully all accounts of their voyages and dis- 
coveries, compared their reports and gains with 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 129 

those of Spanish and French discoverers, and be- 
sought his queen, Elizabeth, at the close of the six- 
teenth century, to begin to settle the new land with 
colonies of English people. 



L30 INDIANS AND PIONEERS, 



CHAPTER TUT. 

INDIANS AND EUROPEANS. 

Picture to yourselves an Indian, standing on a 
hill above the beach of any part of our Atlantic 
shore that von know best. It is early morning'. 
The Indian is looking intently at a strange vessel, 
which is many, many times larger than his largest 
bark canoe or any quintan he lias ever hollowed 
from the trunk of a bio- tree. It has tall sticks 
standing on the deck, with pieces of white cloth 
hanging from them. It seems to move toward him, 
yet no one is seen using paddles. 

The white cloths drop. Over the bow is lowered 
a big, black thing, which looks in the distance 
like a heavy imitation of a sprung bow and arrow. 
After that is dropped into the water, some boats 
are seen. They are more like canoes, but larger 
and broader. In each there are several white- 
skinned men, their bodies covered with cloth that 
fits them — a very strange sight, far different from 
Indians dressed in skins and blankets. These men 
sit in their boats and use many paddles that stick 
out on both sides in an unheard-of way; but they 



m mi 




Discovery of Hispaniola (from Herrera). 



132 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

move swiftly over the water. They run upon the 
beach and come ashore. 

PLANTING THE KING'S STANDARD. 

Other natives, men and women, have seen the 
sight, and gather to meet the strangers as they 
leave their boats. The natives look with delight on 
these people, whose faces are of so much lighter 
color than their own, and whose bodies are closely 
covered with gay-colored stuffs and with armor 
that shines in the morning sunlight. Many inter- 
esting things are in their hands, too. The natives 
think that these beings are gods, who have come 
to be worshiped. So, in fear and reverence, the 
red-skins keep together and watch the leader of 
the visitors, as he takes his stand on some high 
point of ground above the beach and plants a cross 
in the name of his king and church, while the men 
stand by, with their hats off. and the devout soldier 
priests, in their black and white robes, read a 
solemn service. 

The natives cannot understand what they see, 
but they watch it all intently. When the strangers 
have finished their ceremony, they come toward 
the natives, holding out to them bright-colored 
bells, mirrors, and other wonderful things, which 
the natives finally take in their own hands and ex- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 133 

amine with delight. When they hand them back 
to the visitors they are told in sign language to 
keep them. That fills them with greater delight, 
and they are soon very friendly, showing the stran- 
gers how they live and trying to tell them all that 
they wish to know. 

WHAT THE STRANGERS SEE. 

The leader of the white men is deeply interested 
in all that he sees. He visits the fields where 
grows a grain that is new to him. It grows in lit- 
tle hills, set in rows. The plant is tall, has long, 
rustling leaves, and the grain grows in kernels on 
a cob that is covered with husks and has a long-, 
silky tassel at the top. The natives call it maize. 
White men have called it Indian corn. The Indians 
give the leader bread made of this corn, which he 
finds good. They give him fruit from their trees, 
too, and potatoes, the root of a plant. Then they 
invite him to smoke their pipes filled with a plant 
they raise, which we call tobacco. There are many 
new and beautiful trees and bushes and wild flowers, 
but the leader can stop only a short time in each 
place where he plants his king's standard. He soon 
gives a signal to his men. They go down to the 
beach and make ready the boats to return to the 
vessel. But some are at other business. 



134 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

STEALING NATIVES. 

The Indians hear a cry from one of their young 
girls. They see her struggling between two strong 
men who carry her down to a boat and push off 
quickly. In another boat is one of their young 
men, trying to leap out, but uttering no cry, lest 
he seem cowardly. 

The natives' wonder and delight is changed to 
anger and to fear. Some run to their huts for 
their bows and arrows. Others get out their 
quintans ; but the strangers have reached their 
ship and are sailing away with their captives be- 
fore the indignant natives can attack them. There 
is nothing to do but angrily to watch the white 
sails out of sight, and then to hold rude, but sad 
ceremonies to express their loss and grief. They 
cherish their rage. They watch for white men's 
ships, with weapons ready to kill any who may 
try to land. 

THE NATIVES IN EUROPE. 

The early explorers seldom went back to Europe 
without a few natives. In all the great cities the 
Indians were the wonders of their time. If they 
were chiefs or the children of chiefs they were 
sometimes treated as royal. 

Thev were shown at court. Their portraits 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 135 

were painted. They were often carefully taught 
many things to convert them to the Christian relig- 
ion and to civilization. After a few years, many 
of them were taken back to teach their people and 
to help the white men plant colonies ; but many 
who returned were landed hundreds of miles from 
their homes. 

The natives who walked the streets, marveling 
at all they saw in Europe, little knew how much 
their visits had to do with the planting of white 
men's colonies in their native land. 

REASONS FOR PLANTING COLONIES. 

Some Europeans who saw the natives and heard 
that they worshiped the sun, moon and stars, be- 
gan at once to plan to send missionaries to teach 
them the Christian religion. The Roman Catho- 
lics of Spain and France spread their missions far 
and wide. They altered, if they did not entirely 
change, the beliefs of all the northern and south- 
ern Indians. 

In England, many people desired to send Prot- 
estant missionaries to the middle regions. One of 
these, you have heard, was Richard Hakluyt, a 
clergyman, who made a book for Englishmen, to 
tell them all that was known about the New World 
in other countries of Europe. Hakluyt urged his 



136 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

queen, Elizabeth, to plant " one or two colonies of 
our nation upon that fyrme," or land, "where 
they may first learn the language of the people . . . 
and by little and little acquainte themselves with 
their manners, and distill into their mynds the 
swete and lively liquor of the gospel." 

TRADE. 

Merchants who saw the Indians had other de- 
sires which led them to fit out colonies. They 
thought of the many things they could sell in the 
New World. Hakluyt helped them, too. He said : 
" All savages will take marvelous delight in any 
garment, be it ever so simple : as a shirt, a blue, 
yellow, red, or green cotton cassacke, a cap, or such 
like, and will take incredible pains for such a trifle." 
It was soon well known how the Indians delighted 
in beads, bells, and other trinkets. For such cheap 
trifles they were willing to exchange precious met- 
als and jewels, if they had them, and large quan- 
tities of furs and woods, which brought high prices 
in Europe. 

Many statesmen thought it would be a piece of 
economy to take the prisoners out of the prisons, 
where they lived in idleness and cost the govern- 
ment a great deal of money, and to set them at 
work in America to build up a great colony, which 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 137 

should supply the London merchants with furs and 
other valuable things. 

ROYAL RIVALRY. 

There was a still stronger reason urged upon 
Queen Elizabeth to send out colonies to North 
America. Whenever a king of Europe made a 
good claim to any part of the New World, his 
power became greater in the Old World. The 
queen was advised to favor some action, lest, " by 
our slackness, we suffer the French, or others, to 
prevent us." 

Before the close of the sixteenth century the 
pioneers from Europe to America had begun to 
see that a cross in the New World and a royal 
proclamation in the Old World were not enough to 
secure a sovereign's claim to the discoveries made 
in his name. Discoveries must be confirmed by 
settlements. 

We shall see that all these reasons and plans 
worked together when, at last, at the opening of 
the seventeenth century, England made a perma- 
nent settlement in the New World, 



138 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN VIRGINIA. 

In Queen Elizabeth's time several companies of 
English colonists tried to make settlements on the 
coast somewhere north of the Spanish settlements 
in Florida. England claimed all the country north 
of the Spanish settlement, and called it Virginia, 
in honor of Elizabeth, their Virgin Queen. 

The first people who came as colonists faced 
dangers and endured great suffering. They were 
sent out, with the queen's permission, by Sir Hum- 
phrey Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, and generous 
men who joined them, and gave their fortunes, 
and sometimes their lives, to plant an English com- 
monwealth in the New World. 

THE FIRST ENGLISH CHILD BORN IN AMERICA. 

One of the early colonies which did not succeed 
settled on Roanoke Island, in what is now Albe- 
marle Sound; and there a little girl was born. She 
was Virginia Dare, the first child of English par- 
ents born in America. Possibly she grew up with 
the Indians, but not there at Roanoke. Her grand- 
father, John White, left her and the colony, with 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 139 

all going well, to get supplies from England ; but 
the next English captain who went there found 
that everyone was gone and the houses were in 
ruins. Sir Walter Raleigh and his friends searched 
for them for years; but no one ever found trace of 
them. They may have perished from hunger. 
They may have tried to go back to England in 
some frail boat of their own. Spaniards or Indians 
may have killed or captured them. Wild beasts 
may have devoured them. We know how all of 
these misfortunes destroyed other colonies; but no 
one knows what ruined the first settlement at 
Roanoke. 

NEW VENTURES. 

By 1607 the queen was dead, Raleigh was in 
prison, and English people had learned that one or 
two men could not afford to send out colonies at so 
heavy a cost. Then a large number of men decided 
to form a company to undertake this work of colony 
planting. You remember that the country had 
rich forests, fertile soil, abundance of animals for 
food and furs; and that everyone felt sure that there 
were mines of gold besides. The new companies 
decided to send out regular trading agents and 
workmen bound to serve them for a certain num- 
ber of years, on much the same plan that the great 
East India Company of England had adopted to set 



140 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



up stations or " factories, "through the country and 
keep agents or colonies in charge of them. The 
East India Company had grown rich and powerful, 
and some of the members thought they also would 
make a great success of the Virginia Company. 

JAMESTOWN. 

One day in April, in the year 1607, the Susan 
Constant, the Good Speed and the Discovery sailed 

into the Chesapeake Bay. 
For a few days the men 
who came in these ships 
explored the shores about 
there, then decided to set- 
tle upon a peninsula, about 
fifty miles up a river which 
was called the James, in 
honor of their king, James 
of England. 

There was much hard 




'ape Henry 



work to do, much danger 
to face and suffering to 
bear, before this settle- 
ment or plantation, as they called it, was estab- 
lished, but it was finally secured — the first perma- 
nent English settlement in America. There were 
about one hundred men in the three ships. Some 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 141 

of them were "gentlemen, 7 ' who had never done 
any work. Others came for adventure, to find gold, 
to see the new country, and to have a good time. 
Besides, there were about twelve mechanics and a 
few strong men of good sense, who knew how much 
work was to be done, and that each man must be 
industrious, obey orders, and do his part. 

Captain Newport was in command of the largest 
ship, the Susan Constant. He was in charge of the 
entire expedition until it reached Virginia. King 
James I. had given him a sealed box, which con- 
tained a list of such men of the party as his Majesty 
had selected to form a council to govern the colony. 
This box was not to be opened until they made 
their land-fall. Imagine how curious they must 
have been to see these names during their long 
voyage. After the box was opened and the king's 
instructions were read, all the men named with one 
exception were sworn into the council. Captain 
John Smith was deprived of his share in the govern- 
ment for about a month. Then he, too, was sworn 
into office. This council elected for their chairman 
or president a rich merchant of London, whose 
name, Edward Maria Wingfield, you may think 
rather odd. The peninsula chosen for Jamestown 
was low and malarious. The colonists were not 
the sort of men to work willingly, even for food. 



142 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



THE COMMON-STORE SYSTEM. 

There was trouble from the beginning. All the 
colonists were bound by an agreement with the 
company in England to live and to work on what 
was called the common-store system for seven 
years. All the game and fish that were taken, all 
the corn that was received from the Indians or 
raised by the colonists, all the food that they 
brought with them, or might obtain in any way, 
was put into a common store-house. 

Out of that the treasurer of the colony, or Cape 
Marchant, gave equal portions to all the colonists. 
When there was more than they needed it was to 
be sold to the merchants, and the proceeds sent 
to the company in England. In the same way 
the lumber that the colonists cut, the furs and 
other things they received from the Indians, and 
all that they could raise for market, were put into 
the common store, and sent to the company by Cap- 
tain Newport, who sailed back and forth regularly. 
By this plan no man had the results of his own labor. 
The possibility of a share in a general settlement, 
seven years hence, seemed a small reward. Many 
would not try to work. Some of these were willing 
to hunt for gold and gems, which no one ever 
found in Virginia. 



EARLIEST BAYS IN AMERICA. 143 

HELP FROM THE INDIANS. 

Several of the colonists wrote letters and books 
about these early days in Jamestown. Wingfield 
tells how, in June, "an Indian came from the 
great Powhatan with the word of peace ; that he 
desired greatly our friendship . . that we should 
sow and reap in peace. . . A little after this came 
a deer to the President from the Great Powhatan. 
He and his messengers were pleased with trifles. 
The President likewise bought deer of the Indians, 
beavers and other flesh, which he always caused to 
be equally divided among the colony." 

From malaria and hunger there was such sick- 
ness in Jamestown that nearly half of the colony 
died before September. Another writer said : "We 
lived for the space of five months in this miserable 
distress . . as yet we had no houses to cover us, 
our tents were rotten, and our cabins worse than 
nought." 

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH AND POWHATAN. 

The man who wrote this about the tents ane_ 
cabins was Captain John Smith. He had come 
with the others, and was one of the king's council. 
After a time he was made president. Smith was 
one of the few men of the colony who was always 
ready to work — to build cabins, or fish, or hunt, 



144 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



or to help make the log palisade around the settle- 
ment. He often took small parties of settlers into 
the Indians' country, to buy corn, and to carry out 
the company's orders to explore the rivers and the 
bay. He gave the natives beads, pieces of copper 
and hatchets for their corn. He was so strong and 




Captain John Smith. 



brave with them, too, when they threatened to at- 
tack the white men, that they feared and respected 
him and became good friends to the colony as long 
as he stayed in Jamestown. 

On one of Captain Smith's first visits to Pow- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 145 

hatan's country, the great chiefs brother captured 
the white man and his party, and threatened to 
kill them. But, by appearing not to be afraid, 
and by telling- tales to interest and amuse the In- 
dian Emperor, Smith turned his captivity into a 
pleasant visit, from which he went home laden with 
presents. This is an account of the visit, with the 
captain's spelling changed to ours. 

MAKING FRIENDS OF ENEMIES. 

"Arriving at Weramocomoco, their Emperor 
. . . kindly welcomed me with good words and 
great platters of sundry victuals, assuring me of 
his friendship and my liberty within four days." 
Powhatan "admired and was not a little feared" 
when Smith told him "of the pfreat kino- of Eno;- 
land, of the territories of Europe which were sub- 
ject to him, and of the innumerable multitude of 
his ships, the noise of trumpets and terrible man- 
ner of fighting, 1 ' which the king's subject would 
use here in Virginia if necessary. 

Powhatan desired the colony to forsake Pa spa - 
hegh, as he called the region about Jamestown, 
and to live with him upon his river. 

" He promised to give me corn, venison, or what 
I wanted to feed us, hatchets and copper we should 
make him, and none should disturb us. This re- 



146 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

quest I promised to perform, and thus having, with 
all the kindness he could devise, sought to content 
me, he sent me home with four men, one that usu- 
ally carried my gown and knapsack after me, two 
others loaded with bread, and one to accompany 



me. 7 ' 



PRESIDENT WINGFIELD. 



The poor Jamestown settlers often provoked trou- 
ble with the natives. They quarreled among them- 
selves and with President Wingfield, too. Perhaps 
he was not as wise nor strong nor as kind as he 
might have, been, yet he said he tried hard to be 
fair with what belonged to all, and generous with 
what was his own. But, at length, the council put 
him out of office, sent him on board one of the 
boats in the harbor and kept him there as a pris- 
oner. In writing his complaint in later years, Wing- 
field said : "It is further said I did much banquet 
and ryot. I never had but one squirrell roasted, 
whereof I gave part to My Rateliff, then sick ; yet 
was that squirrell given to me." 

MORE COLONISTS. 

In the spring of 1608 Captain Newport arrived 
from England again with a new party of better 
men, who gave fresh courage to all. He put his men 
at work to build a new storehouse and a church, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 147 

" all which workes they finished cheerfully." Then 
he went up the river with his ship and came back 
with it well loaded with corn, wheat, beans and 
peas. Newport also induced the colonists to allow 
Wingfield to come on shore to sleep until the de- 
posed president went back to England with him. 

In the autumn of 1608 a third party of colonists 
came to Jamestown, with some women and chil- 
dren. As soon as family life began, the colony 
grew happier and stronger. 

A NEW GOVERNMENT. 

A new charter was given to the company in 
England in 1609. By it the company was able to 
make some changes toward better government in 
the colony. In place of a president, chosen by the 
local council, there was to be a governor chosen by 
their council in England. The governor had au- 
thority from the king and the company, and nearly 
all Englishmen of that day thought no authority 
was of any power unless it came from the king. 
The colony was still to live and work on their com- 
mon-store system. 

SMITH'S DEPARTURE. 

This same year of 1609 the company sent five 
hundred new emigrants to Jamestown. Some of 



148 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

them arrived before the new governor. Captain 
John Smith very soon after this went back to Eng- 
land either, as he said, on account of his wounded 
arm, or, as others believed, because the company 
recalled him. He went back, leaving the colony 
in charge of a gentleman named George Percy, 
who was a good man, but in poor health. When 
Smith left, Jamestown had " a church, a fort, a 
storehouse, sixty dwelling-houses, and a stock of 
domestic animals.'' Besides, there were fields and 
several plantations outside of the town. 

As soon as the captain was gone, all the colo- 
nists, old and new, refused to work. When the In- 
dians heard that their friend had left, and how 
badly the colonists behaved without him, they at- 
tacked the settlers and destroyed their property 
almost to the very gates of Jamestown. Within a 
year the colony dwindled to sixty persons. They 
were just going away when another load of fresh 
colonists, with plenty of supplies, came with the 
governor, Lord de la War, whose name we call 
Delaware. 

The governor set everyone to work, and built 
the settlement up again ; but he was soon forced 
to go back to England for his health. Then the 
colonists resumed their lazy ways, and almost per- 
ished again, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 149 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW THE PLANTATION OP VIRGINIA WAS 
SAVED BY DALE. 

In less than a year after Governor De la War 
left Jamestown, it was almost in ruins for the 
second or third time. That was In 1611. The man 
who saved it was Sir Thomas Dale. He came as 
High Marshal of Virginia. He remained about 
five years. After that the fear of failure was passed. 
Dale was soon followed by three hundred more 
colonists. One hundred cows and other cattle 
were soon sent by the company. He was a second 
Captain Smith. "All the men in the colony either 
worked or starved while he was governor." He 
began a new and healthy plantation not far from 
Jamestown, which was called, for Prince Henry, 
the City of Henrico. 

Dale also induced the company to begin care- 
fully to alter the common-store system. A few col- 
onists were allowed to have three acres each, and 
to work for themselves upon this land. The change 
was so successful that it was extended, and finally 
the old system was abandoned, 



150 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

SOME STRICT LAWS. 

Before this change was made, however, Dale had 
to give orders and enforce them to make each man 
do his share. In order to increase the number of 
poultry, Dale made a rule that no person was to 
kill a domestic fowl, whether it was his own or not. 
No baker nor cook who was supposed to work for 
the common store should ask for pay or keep back 
any of the food. If he did he was to have his ears 
cut off. These rules and many others were read 
by the minister in church each Sunday morning. 
This was a disagreeable duty, because the minister 
knew how the people disliked the rules, or "Dale's 
Code," as they were called ; but he knew that if he 
did not read them he would not receive his full 
share of the next week's food. 

BETTER DAYS IN JAMESTOWN. 

The people in Jamestown did not need such 
strict laws after a while, for a better class of men 
began to come over from England, to grow rich 
by raising tobacco. Governor Yeardley, who took 
Sir Thomas Dale's place in 1616, advised the cul- 
tivation of this plant, for which there was a grow- 
ing demand in Europe. The temptation was then 
strong to raise tobacco rather than corn, each man 
leaving that for his neighbor to do. The more 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 151 

sensible men in the colony remedied this by pass- 
ing a law that every man must have on hand an 
amount of corn in proportion to the number of 
men employed by him. 

Meanwhile the Indians were friendly, especially 
the great chief, Powhatan. His daughter had to 
be kidnapped, however, to bring this about. 

THE KIDNAPPING OF POCAHUNTAS. 

"Powhatan's delight and darling, his daughter, 
Pocahuntas, . . . tooke some pleasure ... to be 
among her friends at Patoamecke." These are 
lines from a true story, written by Raphe Hamor 
in Virginia, in 1614, and printed soon after in 
England. That year, 1614, Powhatan's delight 
and darling left her home, to see something of 
her friends, when her father sent down a party of 
his men with corn and furs to sell to the settlers. 
At that time the great chief was holding some of 
the colonists in captivity. He had also obtained 
possession of some valuable swords and guns. In 
vain had Dale asked the stern old Indian " Em- 
peror " to give them up. It was feared that the 
men would be killed. 

It chanced that at this time Captain Argall, a 
daring sort of English trader, was on one of his 
frequent visits to Virginia, and had sailed up the 



152 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

" Potoamecke.' 7 Argall thought it would be much 
to his credit to discover some means to force Pow- 
hatan to give up the men and the guns. 

What do you think he did ? He induced an In- 
dian, named Japazeus, to help him kidnap Poca- 
huntas, not to hurt her, but to take her down to 
Jamestown and keep her with the settlers until her 
father gave up their men and the swords and guns. 
One day when Japazeus and his wife and Poca- 
huntas were walking on the shore, the wife proposed 
to pay a visit to Captain Argall's boat, which lay in 
the river. An English boat was an interesting thing 
to visit, she told Pocahuntas, and she finally per- 
suaded the young girl to go with her. Everything 
on board was ready to receive them. Pocahuntas 
was somewhat afraid at first ; but she soon took 
delight in the boat and all she saw. A supper 
was served, and then the Princess was made com- 
fortable for the night in the gunner's room. 

In the morning she rose early, to tell Japazeus 
that she wished to go back to the shore. Captain 
Argall had provided for this. He had "secretly 
well rewarded Japazeus with a small copper kettle n 
and some other toys, which he valued so highly that 
' k doubtless he would have betraide his owne father 
for them. 77 " Much a doe there was to perswade 
her to be patient." This " with extraordinary cur- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 153 

teous usage, by little and little," was done, and 
"so to Jamestowne she was brought." A mes- 
senger was sent forthwith to her father to say that 
his only daughter was in the hands of the English 
until he fulfilled their conditions for her return. 
" ' The news was unwelcome and troublesome unto 
him, partly for the love he bare to his daughter, 
and partly for the love he bare to our men, his 
prisoners, of whom ... he made great use ; 
and those swords and peeces [or guns] of ours, 
which, though of no use to him, it delighted him 
to view and looke upon." 

A HAPPY VISIT. 

Many months passed while Pocahuntas lived at 
the fort, or on board Argall's boat. The English 
boys and girls were happy to be her playmates. 
All the people loved her and still treated her as & 
princess, and she loved them. 

Powhatan made several offers to do part of what 
Dale and the captain asked; but he refused to do 
all. Then the captain sailed up the river with 
Pocahuntas, to see if it would move the stubborn 
old chief to have his delight and darling so near, 
yet out of his reach. Two brothers of Pocahuntas 
came on board the boat one day, ' ' being very de- 
sirous to see their sister," When they saw how 



154 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

well she was treated they were delighted, and 
rushed away to persuade their father to redeem 
Pocahuntas, and to make a firm peace forever 
with us." 

THE LADY REBECCA AND HER MARRIAGE. 

Meanwhile Pocahuntas was told that she was 
free to go to her father, if she wished to do 
so. But Master John Rolfe had fallen in love 
with her by this time, and she chose to go back 
to Jamestown and be married to him. When 
Powhatan heard of this he consented to the 
marriage, and made a treaty, agreeing to all the 
English asked of him. Pocahuntas went back to 
Jamestown with an uncle and two brothers. The 
uncle gave the little Indian bride away in the 
church at Jamestown on the 5th of April, 1614. 
" Ever since then," the story goes, " we have had 
friendly commerce and trade, not only with Pow- 
hatan, but also with all his subjects round about 
us." 

Soon after the marriage Marshall Dale went 
back to England. With him sailed Mr. Rolfe and 
his Indian princess bride, who was baptized be- 
fore her marriage under the name of the Lady 
Rebecca. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 155 



CHAPTER XI. 

PLANTATION LIFE IN VIRGINIA. 

You recall that after the settlers began to work 
for themselves they did not need such strict laws 
as "Dale's Code " to keep them at work. Another 
change in the company enabled them to give up 
the common-store system, to sell large tracts of 
land at low prices to what were called " planters." 
They gave these planters the right to elect dele- 
gates of their own to a legislature, or House of 
Burgesses, which met with the governor and his 
council in what they called a general assembly, 
and made the laws for the colony. 

Then a better class of Englishmen began to 
think it worth while to come to Virginia to take 
up plantations of hundreds of acres. They raised 
tobacco on these plantations, and soon grew to 
like the colony so well that they built large, sub- 
stantial houses, sent for their families, and called 
Virginia their home. The tobacco-fields of the 
large planters were laid out along the James River 
and its small branches, and along the bay. There 
were no cities in Virginia, although the company 



156 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

wished for them so much that a group of planta- 
tions was often called a city, and efforts were made 
to lay out a town as a centre for them. 

Each plantation was a small settlement in it- 
self. It had its own little harbor; ships came from 
England to its landing, bringing all the articles 
and provisions that were not made or raised on 
the plantation, and taking the planters' tobacco 
crop for return cargo. There was no need for 
towns with shops. There was little coin — tobacco 
was the currency of the colony. Its value was 
fixed by acts of the general assembly. There were 
one or two schools for poor white and Indian chil- 
dren. A few planters' children were taught at home 
until the boys were old enough to be sent to Eng- 
land for their education. People lived an out-of- 
door life — fox-hunting, horseback-riding, boating. 
They did not care much for colonial newspapers ; 
printing was not allowed in their colony for over 
a hundred years. A planter's wealth was in his 
land and his servants, and in the large crops of 
tobacco which he sent to England to pay for sup- 
plies and luxuries. 

NEGRO SLAVES. 

In 1619, soon after the large landholders began 
to come to Virginia, something new was offered 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 157 

for sale at Jamestown. A Dutch ship offered some 
negroes, who had been stolen from the coast of 
Africa. The tobacco planters of the West Indies 
had used negroes as slaves for years, and the Dutch 
traders brought them to Virginia as soon as they 
heard of the new tobacco plantations. Others that 
came soon after found equally ready sale. But 
nearly thirty years passed before many such car- 
goes began to come. In these early days the to- 
bacco was raised by white servants. Before the 
old common-store system was abolished all colo- 
nists were bound to one master — the company. 
After it was abolished, every planter was a mas- 
ter, who took servants under bonds, much as the 
company had done. A few of these were the worst 
sort of criminals from the English prisons, and 
were bound to the planters for life ; but most of 
them were under bonds or indenture as 

" FREE-WILLERS OR REDEMPTIONERS." 

They were often good and industrious, even edu- 
cated men, who had lost their farms, or had had 
other misfortunes in England, and wished to start 
anew in Virginia. So they bound themselves for a 
number of years to work for some large land- 
owner, who paid their passage, kept them in food 
and clothes until the end of " their time," as they 



158 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

called their bondage. Then they received a 
certain number of acres, a small outfit of tools, 
and, perhaps, some money or goods, with which 
they set up small plantations of their own as 
"freedmen," or " redemptioners." Many of the 
honored families of Virginia were founded in this 
way. 

DUTY-BOYS OR APPRENTICES. 

Boys formed another class of white servants in 
the early days of the colony. They were bound 
much as the " free-willers." But they were often 
taken from England against their choice. Some- 
times they were drugged and kidnapped by 
ship -captains, who received certain pay, called 
a bounty, on every servant they landed in Vir- 
ginia. 

The boys were sometimes of poor families ; 
sometimes their parents were rich ; but all shared 
about the same hard life in Virginia, and it usually 
lasted until the boy became of age. 

PRISONER-SERVANTS. 

The old plan, to send England's prison inmates 
to America, was carried out on a large scale in the 
important years following 1619. Some of these, 
you know, were criminals, bound for life as a 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 159 

mercy, instead of hanging them ; but most of 
them were not vicious, and many had good char- 
acters. In those days a good man was often in 
prison because the king, some prince, or other 
great man, did not choose to keep up his friend- 
ship. The news that he had lost favor would 
spread. Any landlord or tailor, butcher or baker, 
who happened to have a debt against him, could 
keep him in prison until he paid it. In the same 
way, any upright man, who fell ill, or was over- 
taken by any misfortune, might be thrust into jail 
for the food he had used or the rent of the farm 
whose crops had failed. The jails were clamp and 
dirty, and the prisoners often died before they 
could find any way to get out and work to pay 
their debts. It was a bad system, and has now 
been abolished. Such prisons, bad as they were, 
cost the kingdom much, and James I. thought it 
an excellent plan to send many ship-loads of the 
prisoners to Virginia, where planters were glad to 
have them. The ship-captains received money for 
each person they took over, the king or the com- 
pany received something, too ; the planter had 
the man's labor for five years, perhaps, and the 
prisoner worked out his liberty as an honest man, 
and became owner of a small plantation of his 
own. 



160 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

THE INDIAN MASSACRE. 

The last event of importance between the Indians 
and the pioneers of Virginia was the massacre of 
1622. 

After that disaster, the company did everything 
that could be done to restore the colony to strength 
at once. They sent help of all kinds and thousands 
of new colonists. From that time there was less 
trouble with the Indians. They fell back to the 
interior, and, although they occasionally broke out 
in hostilities, they were always quickly quelled 
after the great massacre. The early Indian life 
and the pioneer life of the plantation of Virginia 
disappeared. 

In later years, during a struggle between op- 
posing political parties in the colony, Jamestown 
was burned. You see its ruins in this picture, just 
as you may see them if you go there now, for the 
town was never rebuilt. It had clone its work as 
the first permanent settlement in Virginia. 



162 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

VIRGINIA'S NEIGHBORS. 

The English were later than their rivals in be- 
ginning- their colonization, but they had one de* 
cided advantage over them in the temperate climate 
of the region they chose. Their settlements suf- 
fered much from the new climate, but Virginia was 
favored with a less intense heat in summer than 
the region of Spanish plantations, and with a far 
milder winter than the French endured in the 
North. Upon the Chesapeake Bay the greater 
part of the year was warm, and the soil was so 
fertile that a moderate amount of industry in the 
tobacco-fields and the corn-fields was repaid with 
large crops. 

MARYLAND, 1633. 

To these warmer regions of the "corn belt/ 7 
Lord Baltimore turned in 1621, from the colder 
coast of Nova Scotia, where he had been trying to 
settle a colony at Avalon. With his band of col- 
onists, he sailed south to Virginia. There he was 
unwelcome, for both he and most of his colonists 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 163 

were Roman Catholics, while the Virginia colonists 
were stanch members of the Church of England. 

After a short visit, Baltimore went back to Eng- 
land, and a few years later secured from Charles 
I., his king and friend, a grant of land to the north 
of Virginia. This was called Maryland, in honor 
of the king's wife, Henrietta Maria. 

Like William Penn, the Quaker founder of 
Pennsylvania, Lord Baltimore wanted to make this 
large tract of land serve both as an asylum for his 
persecuted fellow-believers, and as a source of in- 
come to himself as proprietor. So he made it 
known that in Maryland Roman Catholics could 
freely believe and worship as they thought right. 
At the same time, in order to attract other colo- 
nists, he made wise provisions for toleration. In 
his letter of instructions to colonists, Lord Balti- 
more said: " Preserve unity and peace on ship- 
board amongst all passengers ; and suffer no 
. offence to be given to any of the Protes- 
tants ; for this end cause all acts of the Roman 
Catholic religion to be done as privately as may 
be." He also instructed the governor "to treat 
all Protestants with as much mildness and favor 
as justice would permit/' and this rule was to be 
observed "at land as well as at sea." 

In 1633 the Ark and the Dove brought over 



164 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

the first band of 300 colonists to Maryland. They 
cruised along the shore, "to make choice of a 
place 7 ' that was "probable to be healthfull and 
fruitfull 77 ; a place that might be easily fortified 
and ' ' convenient for trade both with the English 
and savages. 77 Such a spot was found, and the 
first settlement made near the mouth of the Poto- 
mac River. St. Mary 7 s was the name given to it. 
Here, by friendliness with the Indians, gentle 
toleration in religious matters, and the coming in 
of industrious, thrifty settlers, the colony began 
happily. 

From 1642 to 1660, while they were having re- 
ligious troubles in England, and the Puritans held 
the chief powers, the colonists in Maryland had 
similar strifes between the Protestants and Cath- 
olics, and the Mary landers and Virginians. After 
Charles the Second came to the throne, in 1660, 
affairs went smoothly again in Maryland. Tolera- 
tion and good laws made it once more a happy 
haven for people from England and from the other 
colonies. In 1688, at the time of the "Glorious 
Revolution, 77 which put William and Mary on the 
English throne where James the Second had ruled 
so badly, there was a little rebellion in Maryland 
which the proprietor could not seem to settle. 

Three years later, William and Mary took the 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 165 

government out of Lord Baltimore's hands, making 
Maryland, for a time, a royal province. The land 
was left still in the hands of the Baltimore family, 
and from it they derived a large income. Both 
hopes of the founder had been realized. He had 
founded a colony where Roman Catholics had tol- 
eration and freedom of worship, and had devel- 
oped a source of income for his family from his 
lands. 

With Virginia the relations of Maryland had 
never been very friendly, for Virginia claimed this 
land to the north, and felt that Charles the First 
had no right to give it to his friend, Baltimore. 

THE CAROLINAS, 1663. 

In 1663 Virginia was troubled again by having 
the land to the south given to several favorites of 
King Charles the Second. You remember that 
the early English colonies sent out by Raleigh 
had begun their ill-fated settlements on the coast 
of what is now North Carolina, and the French had 
made an unsuccessful attempt at Port Royal in 
South Carolina, before the Virginia colonists came 
to Jamestown. 

After Virginia was well established, the colo- 
nists often explored the region of North and South 
Carolina, considering it a part of their territory. 



166 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

Here and there a few small settlements, of which 
they took little notice, were unknown to the king 
and entirely overlooked, when King Charles II. 
gave the whole region to five men in 1665. They 
at once made attempts to sell the land to settlers, 
offering inducements to those who would emigrate 
from England and other countries. 

The government provided officers with high- 
sounding names and allowed great privileges to 
owners of large estates. This elaborate scheme of 
government was never fully carried into effect. 
Charleston became the chief settlement, and by 
1682 had three thousand inhabitants under a good 
local government. Some of the colonists were 
French Huguenots, some Scotch Presbyterians ; all 
were willing to work hard to build up the town. 
The whole colony, however, was troubled by the 
Spanish in Florida, who often led the Indians 
against them. The governors sent out by the 
proprietors were not always good men. They 
sometimes made serious trouble. 

By 1688 the colony was still weak and turbu- 
lent ; but the people of Charleston, by industry 
and trade with the other colonies, built up their 
city. In the later history of the colonies it took 
an important place, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 167 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HOW THE PILGRIMS CAME TO NEW PLYMOUTH. 

Do you ask why these people are gathered on 
this shore, some crying, others looking sadly and 
steadily over the ocean ? Can you see away off on 
the horizon the sails of a ship ? Find the rude log 
house up on the hill behind the people. Look at 
their faces and their clothes, then read their story ; 
for they are the Pilgrims at Plymouth, watching 
their ship, the Mayflower, start for England, which 
was once their home. 

It is the spring of 1621. These people have al- 
ready begun the first permanent settlement on the 
mainland of New England. Notice the boy stand- 
ing beside the old, gray-haired man, and the little 
girls among the women who are kneeling on the 
ground. Then, do you see the woman hiding her 
face on her husband's shoulder to conceal the tears 
she could not keep back ? Perhaps she was trying 
to shut out the last glimpse of the disappearing 
ship which the others seem so eager to watch. 
Their hearts and thoughts seem to go back to 
England, their old home. The little children, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 169 

however, have no remembrance of Old England, 
for they were not born there, nor here in New 
England. The only home they knew was in Hol- 
land until the Mayflower brought them to this new 
coast a few months ago. 

When the ship was out of sight, the Pilgrims 
went back to their homes, which were small log- 
cabins. Then, many of the children, no doubt, 
asked their fathers and mothers to tell them once 
more the story of their lives in Old England, and 
why they had come to this new country to stay, 
while the Mayflower went back. 

THE OLD HOME AT SCROOBY. 

This is the story that the Pilgrim fathers must 
have told their children of their life in England: 

It was a long time ago when we lived in the 
pretty country village of Scrooby, Nottingham- 
shire. Some of us were grown men and women 
before the opening of this seventeenth century, 
and the coming of Jamie, the Scotsman, to the 
throne so long held by his mother's enemy, Queen 
Elizabeth. 

The century was only a few years old when we 
formed our church at Scrooby Manor, where Mr. 
William Bradford kept a post-house. We formed 
our church, with Mr. Bradford as ruling elder. 

o 



170 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

For our minister we called Mr. John Robinson, a 
learned and high-minded young man, who had 
studied at the University of Cambridge. We were 
like a great many Englishmen of that day, who 
were not satisfied with the Church of England. 
We were all called Puritans, because we thought 
that the beliefs of the church should be purer and 
the services simpler. You could not understand 
just what changes we wanted if you were told, so 
you may simply remember that we wanted to wor- 
ship in what we believed to be a better way than 
that of the Established Church. 

SEPARATISTS. 

A large number of the people who wanted these 
changes remained in the Church, hoping to make 
the changes gradually. But we were of the party 
who believed that it was best to form a church 
of our own. Those who did that were called 
Separatists. We formed a Separatist church at 
Scrooby, and many people met with us from other 
towns near by, in Nottinghamshire and Lincoln- 
shire. We, and all those who formed Separatist 
churches, drew down the ill will of James I., the 
archbishops, the bishops, and all the clergy and 
people who believed that the Established Church 
was right, just as it was. No Englishman, woman, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 171 

or child, they said, should be allowed to hold ideas 
of their own about the worship of God, much less 
to form churches of their own. 

PERSECUTION AND REFUGE IN HOLLAND. 
1607-1620. 

King- James I. was determined, he said, "to 
make the Puritans conform or to harry them out 
of the land." When he raised Bancroft to the 
high office of archbishop of Canterbury, the harry- 
ing was done so thoroughly that almost all we 
Separatists in England fled to Holland for our 
lives. 

The States-General, as the government of Hol- 
land was called, had lately made laws to protect 
everyone in their country in his own form of wor- 
ship. Holland, or the Netherlands, as it was also 
called, was the only country in the world at that 
time where people could have what was termed 
religious liberty. 

A SHORT STAY IN AMSTERDAM. 

Many Separatist churches went from England 
to Amsterdam before we made up our minds to 
leave Scrooby; but the time came for us to go, 
too, in 1608. It was sad to leave our country 
homes, and the farms where our fathers and grand- 
fathers had lived before us, and where we had 



172 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

hoped our children and grandchildren would live 
after us. Few Englishmen like foreigners. It 
was hard to go to a strange country where people 
spoke the Dutch language, which we did not un- 
derstand ; but when we thought of our beliefs and 
our church, we were all willing to face anything 
in order to worship God as we believed we ought 
to do. Elder William Brewster had traveled and 
lived in the Low Countries — another name for 
Holland. We were all willing to follow him and 
Mr. Robinson wherever they thought best to go. 
So we followed the other Separatist churches to Am- 
sterdam. But Amsterdam is a large city. It seemed 
too crowded for such country-loving people as we 
were. Besides, the Separatist churches there were 
disputing among themselves, and doing a number 
of things that our high-minded pastor did not wish 
to see us do. 

LEYDEN. 

So, after a year, we moved to the smaller city 
of Leyden, where there was a great university, 
and where we met many good people from all 
parts of Europe. Captain Myles Standish, an Eng- 
lish soldier, was one who became our stanch friend, 
although he never joined our church. In Leyden 
we all learned some trade, for we were all poor, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 173 

although most of us had left comfortable homes in 
England. We tried to keep to our English ways, 
but all were obliged to learn the Dutch language 
for our business. Our children heard more of it 
than of their own. They played with Dutch chil- 
dren, although we did not always desire to have 
them. Some of our older boys and girls fell in 
love with young people of the Netherlands and 
married them, much against our wishes. Worse 
than all else, we found that we could earn so little 
money at our new trades that we must keep our 
children away from their play, and the fresh air, in 
order to make them work, to provide the clothing 
we needed, and food enough to keep us all alive. 

NEWS OF THE NEW WORLD. 

We heard how the Spaniards had opened up 
South America, and we wondered sometimes if we 
could make a home for our children there. But 
the Spaniards' country was a Roman Catholic 
country. We could not go there. Our objections 
to the Church of England were, that it was grow- 
ing too much like the Church of Rome, from 
which it was separated in the time of Queen Eliza- 
beth's father, Henry VIII. 

After a time we heard that a colony had planted 
Jamestown, in Virginia. Again, news came that 



174 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

our own countryman, Henry Hudson, had taken 
possession of a beautiful country in North Amer- 
ica, near Virginia, for the States- General of Hol- 
land. All this was talked over by Mr. Robinson, 
Elder Brewster, Deacon Carver, and other mem- 
bers of our church. There were about three hun- 
dred of us then. At last it was decided that the 
younger and stronger members of our church 
should go to the New Netherland, or to Virginia. 
They were to go as pioneers for the rest. Then 
there was a hard time to get the permission, and 
the help we needed to begin the first settlement. 
The States-General refused to protect us and our 
religion in America. Then, our only hope was 
to find some help in England among the Puritans 
in the church. Several of them were powerful 
members of the Virginia Company. All Eng- 
lishmen wanted colonies to settle on their claims 
in America, and many thought that a little com- 
pany of Separatists could do no harm in that vast 
wilderness. So, at last, James I. said that if we 
planted there, no one should molest us on account 
of our religion. 

THE MERCHANT-PARTNERS. 

A merchant, by the name of Peirce, obtained 
papers, called patents, from the Virginia Company 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 175 

giving us permission to settle on some of their 
land. Peirce helped us to form a partnership with 
some " Merchant- Ad venturers " of London, who 
lent us money enough for our pioneers' voyage, 
and to begin a settlement. Most of the merchants 
had no sympathy with our religion ; but they 
thought we were so deeply in earnest that we 
should succeed, and pay a good interest on their 
loan. About one hundred of us agreed to go on 
the first voyage. In a solemn ceremony the Ley- 
den church formed us into a sort of daughter 
church, with Elder Brewster at our head, until we 
should be reunited under Mr. Robinson. Our 
church and colony were one. We formed a colo- 
nizing company, with Deacon Carver as our gov- 
ernor or president, and in the name of this com- 
pany we bound ourselves to the Merchant- Adven- 
turers for seven years, until our debt to them 
should be paid. After seven years the property 
of our settlement will be divided. The Merchant- 
Adventurers will receive their loan and their share 
of our profits. Then all our property here, and 
our share of the profits will be divided amongst 
the members of the colonizing company. Mean- 
time, we colonists agreed to have everything in 
common. We hope to be more successful than 
the colonists were in Virginia. 



176 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

LEAVING LEYDEN. 

It was even sadder to leave Leyden than it had 
been to leave England; but all were brave. Mr. 
Bradford said that we were Pilgrims going to the 
promised land at the eall of God. 

We sailed from the Dutch port of Delft Haven, 
where many of our friends from Leyden saw us 
off. Our boat was a small, old vessel, called the 
Speedwell. The Mayflower, a larger and better 
craft, we found at Southampton, England, waiting 
to join us, with a small store of provisions and tools 
and other things we should need in the New World. 
A number of our Separatist friends and some stran- 
gers, sent by the Merchant- Adventurers to work 
under our directions, were waiting for us in the 
Mayflower. After another sad parting, we started. 
In a few days the Speedwell sprung a leak. We 
put back to the port of Plymouth, moved every- 
thing possible to the Mayflower, and started again, 
leaving a number of our dearest friends behind, 
because there was not room for them in the May- 
jh iiner. 

THE VOYAGE TO NEW ENGLAND. 

When we started again there were one hundred 
and two of us, men, women, and children. A voy- 
age of over sixty days brought us to land, but not 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 177 

in the region for which we had our patent, In 
bleak, cold, stormy weather, of early winter, the 
Mayflower came to land far north of Virginia, in 
the region called New England and owned by a 
company, who were rivals of the Virginia com- 
pany, and bitterly opposed to all Puritans, espe- 
cially Separatists. 

It was too near winter to go farther. We came 
to land near Cape Cod. Some of us thought that 
Captain Jones was bribed to come here by the men 
whom the Merchant- Adventurers sent with us, be- 
cause they did not like our strict ways and they 
thought that if we landed where we had no patent 
they could refuse to obey our directions. They 
were mostly laborers whose work was much needed. 
They were to dig and haul wood for us and to pay 
their passage in that way. 

"THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT." 

Elder Bradford, Governor Carver and Captain 
Standish knew how to deal with them. As soon 
as we reached the New World, but before we so 
much as looked for a place to settle, the wise 
fathers of our colony drew up what was called a 
compact, and all the men or "heads of families" 
were asked to sign it at once if they wished to have 
any voice in the government of the colony. Each 



178 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



signer bound himself to obey the laws and orders 
made by the whole body of the signers. Those 
who did not sign must obey the signers or leave 
the colony. There were forty-one signers, the rest 
of our company which numbered one hundred and 
two, you remember, were the Merchants' laborers, 




Elder Brewster's Chair. A Pilgrim Cradle. 

a few of the Pilgrims' men and maid servants and 
the women, the boys and the girls of the Pilgrim 
families." 



THE MAYFLOWER BABY. 

The children knew the story of their life in the 
New World, although, perhaps, they did not know 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 179 

the meaning of much that took place. One event 
they felt was especially for their delight. Before 
they landed Mr. and Mrs. White had a boy-baby 
born to them. They called him Peregrine, which 
means a wanderer. 

BRADFORD'S JOURNAL. 

Fortunately the good Pilgrim and gifted writer, 
William Bradford, set down all the interesting and 
important events of the journey and settlement in 
a book, which has been in careful hands ever since. 
Probably the Pilgrim children were not allowed to 
read Mr. Bradford's manuscript ; but the readers 
of this book may see what he wrote. It has been 
copied in many grown folks 7 histories ; but now, 
if you go to Boston, you may see the valuable 
old book itself, for we have recently got it back 
from England, where it had been for many 
years. 

ON CAPE COD. 

The first landing was on Cape Cod. Some of 
the company went ashore every day, with the ex- 
ception of the Sabbath. The women washed the 
clothes ; the children were told to run and play, 
and stretch the young limbs that had been cramped 
on their long voyage. At the same time other 



180 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

men got out a small boat, called a shallop, which 
the Mayflower had brought over, carefully stowed 
between her decks. The shallop had a sail, as well 
as oars, and was large enough to seat twenty men. 
It was needed to cruise the bay beyond the cape, 
in search of a good harbor and place for the settle- 



i n 











The " Mayflower 11 and the Shallop. 

ment, and it was made ready for use as soon as 
possible. Those who were not at work on the shal- 
lop began to make 

EXCURSIONS ON THE CAPE. 

"Bradford's Journal" says, that on November 
15th some men tk were set ashore, and when they 
had ordered themselves in the order of a single 
hie. and marched about the space of a mile by the 
sea, they espied five or six people, with a dog, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 181 

coming towards them, who were savages ; who, 
when they saw them, ran into the wood, and whis- 
tled the dog after them. . . . When the Indians 
saw our men following them, they ran away with 
might and main ; and our men followed them that 
night about ten miles, by the trace of their foot- 
ings. . . . At length night came upon them, and 
they were constrained to take up their lodging. 
So they set forth three sentinels ; and of the rest, 
some kindled a fire, others fetched wood, and there 
held our rendezvous that night. 

"In the morning, so soon as we could see the 
trace, we proceeded on our journey. We marched 
through boughs and bushes, and under hills and 
valleys, which tore our very armor in pieces, and 
vet could meet with none of them, nor their houses, 
nor find any fresh water, which we greatly desired 
and stood in need of ; for we brought neither beer 
nor water with us, and our victuals was only bis- 
cuit and Holland cheese, and a little bottle of 
aquavitre ; so we were sore athirst. About ten 
o'clock we came into a deep valley, full of brush, 
. . . and long grass, through which we found lit- 
tle paths or tracks ; there we saw a deer and found 
springs of fresh water, of which we were heartily 
glad, and set us down and drunk our first New 
England water. 



182 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

A FARMING COUNTRY. 

"From thence we went on, and found much 
plain ground, about fifty acres fit for the plough, 
and some signs where the Indians had formerly 
planted their corn. . . . We found a little path to 
certain heaps of sand, one whereof was covered 
with old mats, and had a wooden thing, like a 
mortar, on top of it, and an earthen pot, laid in a 
little hole, at the end thereof. We, musing what 
it might be, digged, and found a bow and, as we 
thought, arrows ; but they were rotten. We sup- 
posed there were many other things ; but, because 
we deemed them graves, we put in the bow again, 
and made it up as it was before, and left the rest 
untouched. . . . 

" We went on further and found new stubble, of 
which they had gotten corn this year, and many 
walnut trees full of nuts. . . . Passing thus a 
field or two, we came to another, which had also 
been new gotten, and there we found where a 
house had been and four or five old planks laid to- 
gether. Also we found a great kettle which had 
been some ship's kettle, and brought out of Europe. 
There was also a heap of sand, made like the 
former, but it was newly done ; we might see how 
they had paddled it with their hands. ... In 
it we found a little old basket full of fair Indian 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 183 

corn and digged further, and found a fine, great 
new basket full of very fair corn of this year, some 
yellow, some red, and others mixed with blue, 
which was a very goodly sight. The basket was 
round and narrow at the top. It held about three 
or four bushels, which was as much as two of us 
could lift up from the ground, and was very hand- 
somely and cunningly made. . . . We were 
in suspense what to do with it and the kettle ; 
and at length, after much consultation, we con- 
cluded to take the kettle and as much of the 
corn as we could carry away with us ; and when 
our shallop came, if we could find any of the 
people and come to parley with them, we could 
give them the kettle again and satisfy them for 
the corn. 

"So we took all the ears and put a good deal of 
the loose corn in the kettle for two men to bring 
away on a staff. Besides, they that could put any 
into their pockets, filled the same. . . . And 
thus we came, both weary and welcome, home, 
and delivered in our corn into the store to be kept 
for seed. . . . This was our first discovery 
whilst our shallop was in repairing " 



184 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE PLYMOUTH PLANTATION. 
1620. 

This is the name of Mr. Bradford's book and of 
the Pilgrims' colony, in what is now part of Mass- 
achusetts, for the first settlement was made, not on 

Cape Cod, but on the main 
coast of Massachusetts 
Bay. There Captain John 
Smith had found a harbor 
and put it on his map of 
New England about six 
years before ; and Prince 
Charles had named it for 
Plymouth, England, the 
same port from which the Pilgrims last sailed, you 
remember. 

The Pilgrims reached this harbor of New Ply- 
mouth in December. An exploring party in the 
shallop was caught by a blinding snowstorm. The 
cold was so intense that the spray of the salt water 
froze on the men's clothing until it was like coat- 
of-mail, they said. 

On a Friday evening, this small band of pioneers 




EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 185 

reached the island at the entrance to the harbor. 
They named it after the Mayfloiver's mate, Clarke's 
Island. There they stayed over Sunday. Mon- 
day they sailed about the harbor. Then they 
landed, December 20, 1620 — a date now called in 
New England Forefather's Day. They found 
brooks of fresh water, good hills for look-outs, 
and a large space cleared of the forest. So they 
decided that it would be better to make the set- 
tlement there than to spend more time in looking 
for a better place. 

The next day they went back to the big ship to 
report. Three days later, the Mayflower weighed 
anchor, sailed across the southerly end of Massa- 
chusetts Bay and anchored in Plymouth Harbor. 

BEGINNING WORK. 

Then busy days began for all the men. They 
built a sort of platform on the high hill overlook- 
ing the shore. On this they planted their guns 
to defend the whole town. This town they soon 
laid out. A long street ran from the foot of the 
hill to the platform, with house lots on each side. 
Nearly every morning in the severe winter weather 
the men went ashore ; some to cut and haul trees, 
some to shovel snow away from the ground where 
the first building was begun. This was a large 



186 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



log cabin for a common store-house. "Tuesday, 
the 9th of January, was a reasonably fair day, and 
we went to labor that day in the building- of our 
town in two rows of houses, for more safety. We 
divided by lot the plot of ground whereon to build 
our town. . . . We agreed that every man 




The Old Fort, used also as their 3Ieeting-house. 



should build his own house, thinking that by this 
course men would make more haste than working 
in common. The common house in which, for the 
first, we made our rendezvous, being near finished, 
wanted only covering."' It was "about twenty 
foot square." It was decided that " some of us 
should make mortar and some gather thatch ; so 
that in four days half of it was thatched. Frost 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 187 

and foul weather hindered us much. This time of 
the year seldom could we work half the week." 

All the men seemed ready to work, and Gov- 
ernor Carver did not have much difficulty in keep- 
ing them to the promises made in the compact on 
board the Mayflower. 

CAPTAIN MYLES STANDISH. 

On Saturday, the 17th of January, in the morn- 
ing, a meeting: of the signers was held to establish 
military orders. They chose for their captain, 
their soldier-friend, Myles Standish, a man famous 
for his small figure and his great courage and 
military ability. From the beginning, Captain 
Standish was a leader in all the colony's under- 
takings. He was their commander and chief coun- 
sellor in their relations with the Indians and in all 
their military affairs. 

FRIENDLY INDIANS— SAMOSET. 

The colonists did not see an Indian near enough 
to Plymouth to speak to him until March. Sev- 
eral times natives were seen and heard in the dis- 
tance. Often the settlers were prepared for an at- 
tack, but none was made. One day in March the 
newcomers were surprised by an Indian who came 
into the settlement alone, with words of friendly 



188 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

welcome in English. This was Samoset, an Indian 
who had learned some phrases from English fisher- 
men on the coast, farther east, where, the Pilgrims 
learned, there was a large fishing trade along the 
coast of Maine. 

The colonists returned Samoset's kindly greet- 
ing, and made him welcome to their settlement as 
he had made them welcome to the country. He 
told them many things about the natives and the 
place they had chosen. He said that there was no 
one to dispute their claim to it. The tribes who 
had once owned the region had died of a plague 
or fever a few years before. 

MASSASOIT OF THE WAMPANOAGS. 

After a few days Samoset made a second visit 
to the settlement, bringing with him five other 
natives. These were of the Wampanoag or Po- 
canoket nation. They brought presents from their 
chief, Massasoit, who soon came himself. Mr. 
Winslow and a few other Pilgrims went out to 
meet him on a hill near the plantation. They made 
him presents and proved to him that they wished 
to be good friends. Massasoit at that time was 
troubled by the Narragansett Indians, who lived 
to the north and west of Plymouth across the Nar- 
ragansett Bay ; he thought that the English were 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 189 

a wonderful and very powerful people, and he 
wanted their friendship as much as the Pilgrims 
wanted his. So they made a treaty which was 
kept by both parties to it for many, many years. 
It was broken long after Massasoit's death by 
his warlike son, whom the English called King 
Philip. 

SQUANTO. 

Another of the Pilgrims' valuable Indian friends 
was Squanto. He spoke more English than Sa- 
moset. He had been carried off to England years 
before by one of Captain John Smith's men, and 
had been brought back by Captain Dermer, not 
very long before the Pilgrims arrived. He showed 
the strangers the best ponds for fresh-water fish, 
the best places on the coast for salt-water fish. He 
taught them how to dig clams, which for years 
were often their only food. Squanto also helped in 
the first plantings. He taught the Englishmen 
how to plant the maize or Indian corn, as they 
called it, in rows of little hills. He told them that 
the ground would not be rich enough to grow the 
corn unless they buried a fish, called the alewife, 
in each little hill with the few kernels of seed. 
Every spring thousands of the alewives came up 
the creek at Plymouth from the sea. 



190 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

March 6, Bradford wrote: "This day some gar- 
den seeds were sown." 

SICKNESS, HUNGER AND DEATH. 

The Pilgrims had much sickness and hunger, 
besides all they suffered from the intense cold and 
long storms. Half of them died before the settle- 
ment was ready to live in. The others often lacked 
enough to eat for weeks together. 

Among: those who died before the first summer 
came, was Governor Carver. His friends buried 
him sadly, upon the hill above the settlement, and 
leveled his grave as they did all the others, so that 
the Indians should not know how small the colony 
had grown. 

THE SECOND COMPANY OF PILGRIMS, 1621. 

In the Fortune and the Charity a second com- 
pany of Pilgrims arrived at New Plymouth in 
1621. Some of them were the friends who had 
been obliged to stay behind because of the Speed- 
well's leak. Others came directly from Ley den. 
Still others were from the Merchant- Adventurers, 
and were neither friends nor Separatists. One of 
these was a ship-carpenter, another was a skilful 
salt-maker, both much needed by the colony. Two 
others were less welcome, these were John Oldham, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 191 

a trader, and John Lyford, a minister. Both of 
these newcomers were so disagreeable to the col- 
onists, and made so much trouble by sending false 
accounts to England, that they were finally sent 
out of the settlement in disgrace. 

THE END OF THE COMMON STORE SYSTEM. 

After a year or two the Pilgrim leaders saw that 
the common store system did not encourage people 
enough to keep up their courage in their hard 
pioneer life. In a town meeting it was decided to 
allot an acre of land to every freeman, or voting 
man of the colony, and that he and his family be 
allowed certain time to work it for his own profit. 
The people took so much interest and pride in 
their own plots that the colony began to prosper as 
it had not done before. Still, all had a very hard 
time. 

CO-PARTNERSHIP NOTICE, 1627. 

Have you ever seen these words in a newspaper? 
Do you know that they mean that men who have 
been known as a firm or company doing business 
together wish to notify the public that the partner- 
ship is to come to an end ? Such a time came for 
the Pilgrims and the Merchant-Adventurers, and 
we will call it by its proper name. You remember 
that the partnership was formed in 1620, for a 



192 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

term of seven years. So in 1627 the time came 
for a co-partnership notice. 

You know what a hard time the settlers had had. 
By 1627 they had not succeeded enough to repay 
what the merchants had loaned them. Much less 
were there any profits to divide ; but the partner- 
ship was not a pleasant one to the colonists, and a 
few of the leaders agreed to take the debt on their 
shoulders, if the merchants would release them. It 
was necessary for Captain Standish and Mr. Wins- 
low and others of the most businesslike men in the 
colony, to £'o to England to arrange the matter ; 
but finally the affair was settled. They formed 
an enterprising trading company, which made the 
Pilgrims pioneers in New England trade, as in 
many other things. They paid their heavy debt 
to the London merchants by their hard work and 
enterprise in fishing, and in a trade, especially for 
furs, among the Indians from the Connecticut 
River to the Kennebec. After a few years more 
the colonists paid those who had assumed the Mer- 
chant-Adventurers' debt, and then the colony of 
New Plymouth became a small, self-governing state 
of English freemen, with farms of their own ; and 
every family was free to use its own judgment about 
its work. The settlement prospered. Meantime the 
colony grew. Nearly all the members of the church 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 193 

in Leyden came over, although Mr. Robinson died 
before the main body started. In 1630 there were 
three hundred people in the settlement. In 1643 
three thousand were living comfortably in eight 
small towns, grouped about the first plantation, 
which was finally called Plymouth, while the 
colony was always New Plymouth. 

By that time the pioneer days were over. The 
larger Puritan colony, which settled about Massa- 
chusetts Bay, making Boston their capital, proved 
more attractive than the old colony in many ways. 

The Pilgrims in Plymouth did their great work 
in the early years. When they came to New Eng- 
land, "the discoverer, the gold-seeker, the mer- 
chant, had all attempted the task of colonization, 
with varying success. Now, for the first time, 
religious enthusiasts attempted it. 77 You have 
learned about their success. They had realized 
from the beginning what one of their leaders said 
before this band of pioneers left Holland for the 
New World, that "all great and honorable actions 
are accompanied with great difficulties, and must 
be both enterprised (or undertaken) and overcome 
with answerable courages. 77 

In 1691 King William and Queen Mary of Eng- 
land annexed the "Old Colony 77 to "the Bay," 
and placed Massachusetts under the government 
of a royal province. 



194 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 

11 By a colony we mean a societie of men, drawn 
out of one state .. . . and transplanted into another 
country." So wrote an Englishman, in 1630. 

That year just such 
a "societie," or body 
of men, women and 
children, were drawn, 
by their own desires 
and longings, out of 
England into America. 
We know them by the 
name of the place 
where they settled, the 
Massachusetts Bay Colony. They made many set- 
tlements on the shores of this bay and the rivers 
flowing into it. To know why they came we must 
go back to the story of 




THE PURITANS IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 

You remember that they did not want to separ- 
ate from the national church, as the Pilgrims did, 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 195 

but to change the service to simpler forms. They 
stayed in the church, with some change, and be- 
came very strong toward the close of the first quar- 
ter of the seventeenth century. They became so 
strong that the churchmen who believed in the 
old forms decided that their power must be broken 
once for all. 

James I. died about this time, and his son took 
the throne, as Charles I. Charles made Archbishop 
Laud his favorite, and raised into power new men, 
who promptly turned the church into what the 
Puritans called its " march backward." Besides 
that, Laud and his party made it their business to 
put the Puritans out of favor at court, too, and 
drove them from all the high public offices. 

The next step was to find some excuse to de- 
prive them of their titles and estates. 

A REFUGE IN NEW ENGLAND 

The Puritans said among themselves: We cannot 
do better than to leave the country while we may, 
and let us found a colony of our own in New Eng- 
land, where we can have such church services and 
government as we think Englishmen ought to have. 
This plan interested many rich and powerful men 
and women of the great English families. They 
were quiet about it, for fear Charles I. and Laud 



196 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

should hear of it, and put an end to it. But they 
worked rapidly. They formed a company for 
trade and fishing, and secured a grant from the 
Council for New England to certain right to trade 
and make settlements within a region of about sixty 
miles inland from the shore of the Massachusetts 
Bay, from three miles north of the Merrimac to 
three miles south of the Charles. The king gave the 
company his royal charter, supposing it was merely 
a company to improve English trade in America, 
and to build factories, such as the Dutch had set 
up on the Hudson, the Connecticut, and the Dela- 
ware. His majesty had no idea that he was char- 
tering a Puritan commonwealth in New England. 
Yet, as soon as his parchments passed the Great 
Seal of England, the Puritans began to slip away 
from England to plant a dozen towns on the Bay, 
and by and by they set up their charter govern- 
ment over what was almost an independent state, 
with Boston for their capital. 

THE PIONEERS AT SALEM, 1628. 

The Van, or pioneers of the Bay Company's set- 
tlers, were sent out under Mr. John Endicott, to 
" provide against the wants of a Desart Wilder- 
ness." They went to a place called Naumkeag. 
Some fishermen, from Dorchester, England, were 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. * 197 

waiting for them under a man named Roger Co- 
nant, who made peace in more than one quarrel. 
One of these quarrels was between the Dorchester 
men and Endicott's party. When it was settled 
they decided to call the place Salem, which is a 
Bible word for peace. 

"SERVANTS" OF THE COMPANY. 

Many of Endicott's colony were servants of the 
Puritans who formed the Bay Company, much as 
many of the Jamestown settlers had been under 
bondage to the London Company of Virginia. 
"Those that were sent over as servants, having itch- 
ing desires after novelties, found a readier way to 
make an end of their masters' provisions than they 
could find means to get more. They that came 
over their own men [at their own cost], had but 
little left to feed on, and most began to repent, 
. . . for they had but little corne," so that " they 
were forced to lengthen out their owne food with 



THE SALEM CHURCH. 

Another party was sent out to Salem as soon as 
possible with two ministers. 

The Puritans of the new colony wished to form 
some such church as they had hoped to make of 



198 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

the Church of England. They had no wish to be 
Separatists like the Plymouth Pilgrims. Indeed, 
they were very indignant if any one classed them 
with the Separatists. They simply desired a purer 
form of the Church of England. 

Perhaps they had a clearer idea of what they did 
not want than of what they did want. After all, 
circumstances seemed to shape the forms of worship 
which they established here. There were no large 
churches, with stained-glass windows, nor statues 
in the chancel for any one to find fault with ; no 
organs or surpliced choirs for them to question. 
Neither was there a bishop to consecrate their 
churches and decide upon their ministers. They 
had not determined how they would form their 
churches, when they were told of the simple, 
happy, pure church at New Plymouth. It was 
Separatist, to be sure, but it was a good church, 
and the Salem people soon decided that they could 
not do better than to form another on the same 
plan. 

" As soon as the ministers landed, Mr. Higgin- 
son and Mr. Skelton were elected to the office of 
pastor and teacher, respectively. Each, then, in 
turn, ordained the other by laying hands on him." 
Then a church covenant, or system of faith and 
discipline, was drawn up by Higginson, and ac^ 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 199 

ceptecl by thirty of the settlers." This is the ac- 
count of the beginning of the little church at 
Salem, started by the Van, as we call them. 

GROWTH OF THE COLONY, 1630-1640. 

Eighty people died that winter in the settlement, 
partly on account of the scarcity of food. It was 
a hard season for the pioneers. One of them says, 
in the old-fashioned spelling of that time : "Yet 
some delighting their eye with the rarity of things 
present and feeding their fancies with new discov- 
eries at the spring's approach, they made shift to 
rub out the winter's cold by the fireside having 
fuell enough growing at their very doores. . . . 
discoursing between one while and another of the 
great progress they would make after the summer 
sun had changed the earth's white furr'd gowne 
into a greene mantell." 

When this green mantle was in full view more 
ships came from England, bringing to Massachu- 
setts Bay the first large body of pioneers, under 
John Winthrop, the Governor of the colony. They 
were surprised to find their pioneers at Salem in 
such a miserable plight, with neither homes for 
themselves nor for the newcomers. To add to 
their trouble, the ships loaded with provisions did 
not arrive until long after they were expected, the 



200 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

common store of food was so nearly gone that, in 
order to keep from starving, they were obliged to 
set free one hundred and eighty servants "to shift 
for themselves." 

THE COMPANY'S GOVERNMENT. 

In England, meantime, many people joined the 
company ; that is, they paid money to be used by 
the company, and received shares in the com- 
pany's rights. Some hoped to gain profit from 
the trade and fisheries, but more desired merely to 
join the colony. They were called the freemen of 
the company : now they would be known as stock- 
holders. The whole body of these freemen were 
to meet in the " great and general court ;" (what we 
should call a stock-holders' annual meeting) once a 
year to elect a governor, deputy -governor and 
several councillors, who were called a board of 
assistants (about the same as directors of a com- 
pany). At the general courts the freemen also 
made by-laws to govern the company in any way 
that they saw fit if it did not conflict with the laws 
of England — just as railroad companies now make 
by-laws for their roads. Once in three months 
quarter courts or quarter sessions were held by 
the freemen. The governors and assistants met 
once a month. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 201 

If you think a moment you will see that this 
company, with its freemen, its courts and its gov- 
ernor and assistants had all the responsibility for 
the colony. But a colony is not like a railroad ; 
for it must have laws and government ; and most 
of the stockholders or freemen were now in Amer- 
ica, and could not attend meetings in England. 
So the Puritan members thought it best quietly to 
move the company, charter and all, to their colony. 
All the points of law were looked up — they thought 
it could be done without losing any rights or priv- 
ileges. The governor, Matthew Craddock, decid- 
ed to remain in England as the company's agent, 
and the other officers in London were kept the 
same as usual. John Winthrop was elected as the 
new governor, to go to the colony, and the whole 
action was carried out before Laud or the king 
knew a word about it. 

"THE GREAT EMIGRATION." 
1630. 

Hundreds of families in England secretly spent 
the winter of 1630 in preparing to go to Massa- 
chusetts Bay. Dozens of pairs of shoes of various 
sizes were ordered. Dozens of hats, of swords, of 
bed and bolster ticks, were bargained for. The 
orders were distributed among the different makers 
and tradesmen of the large cities, so that suspi- 



202 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

cions should not be aroused. Toward spring pro- 
visions were gathered — cheese, sugar, salted and 
smoked meats, and many other things. Then 
seeds, tools and fishing-tackle. 

In April the Great Emigration began with the 
sailing of the governor and assistants, and several 
hundred people, in four good ships, the Arabella, 
Jewell, Ambrose and Talbot. 

The voyage was a hard one, of nearly four 
months. Mists and heavy winds delayed and en- 
dangered the ships, yet all reached the Salem har- 
bor in safety. You have already heard of the 
condition of affairs at Salem. Perhaps it was just 
as well that houses had not been built for all the 
new settlers there, for the new comers decided that 
the place did not please them. Some went further 
south and settled what they called Charlton, or 
Charlestown, on a hilly point near the mouth of 
the Charles River, also named for that very King 
Charles, from whom they had taken such care to slip 
away. Others made the settlement of Meadford, 
now Medford, on the My stick River. Others built 
Watertown, " Rocksbury, 77 Dorchester, and New- 
town, which was named Cambridge after a few 
years, when a college was opened there. But very 
soon the largest town in the colony was Boston, 
of which we shall read further on. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



203 



THE INDEPENDENT CHURCH OF NEW ENGLAND. 

Almost all of these towns were founded 
by congregations from England, who kept to- 
gether with their ministers, and who soon set up 
their churches as the Salem people had done, on 
the plan of the Pilgrims' church at New Ply- 
mouth. They were called the Independent, and 
afterward the Congregational, Churches of New 
England. The "sin of separation" from the 
Church of England __ - ^_. ___ ^ 

seemed less terrible 
after they came across 
the ocean and found 
how much they had 
in common with the 
Separatists . While 
they borrowed much 
of the church disci- 
pline and form of government from Plymouth, 
the mass of the people did not accept its mild- 
ness or toleration. Soon no churches were allowed 
in Massachusetts except on this Congregational 
model. 

Religion of a severe sort entered into all the 
duties and pleasures of the Bay colonists' lives. It 
controlled their political affairs also ; for here, the 
churches and towns were controlled by the same 




The First Church. 



204 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

men. Those who were not church members were 
soon left out of a share in the government, for 
freemen of the company voted that to have a 
vote in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, or to hold 
office, a man must belong to the church in his 
town. Services and doctrines were alike in all the 
towns, and hence all those who had a part in pub- 
lic affairs were expected to have the same relig- 
ious beliefs. You know that the Puritans left 
England and faced all these hardships to make a 
place to live where they, and the people who be- 
lieved as they did, might worship unharmed. 

Perhaps you have heard the story of the king, 
who, having spent much of his life in making all 
his people believe alike, retired to a quiet monas- 
tery. Then, for pastime, he tried to regulate the 
clocks. He never succeeded in making all of 
them tick alike. Then he began to wonder if it 
was any more possible to make all people think 
and believe alike. 

The Puritans of the Massachusetts settlements 
did not insist that every one must believe just as 
they did ; but they said that any one who did not 
agree with the majority could not vote ; and any 
one who made his difference of opinion too public, 
could not live in the colony. This was why Roger 
Williams was sent away, and later the Quakers 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



205 



were persecuted for persisting in their peculiar 



religious beliefs. 



EARLIER SETTLERS ON THE BAY. 

The Puritans found several small plantations of 
farmers and fishermen about Massachusetts Bay. 
All of them had been made since the plantation at 
New Plymouth. One was at Weymouth, one at 
Nantasket, another at Mt. Wollaston. On Noddles 
Island, now East Boston, they found Mr. Samuel 
Maverick, "a man of very loving and courteous 
behaviour, very ready to entertain strangers." 

SHAWMUT, WHERE BOSTON WAS BUILT. 

Another good- man, named John Blackstone, 
and called " Blaxton," had a farm on the most at- 
tractive and central 
of all the places in 
the bay, a peninsula 
made up of three 
hills, and almost sur- 
rounded by water. 

The Indians called 
this peninsula Shaw- 
mut, because it had 
springs of good water. When some of the colony 
settled Charlestown, opposite, they called this at- 



. : "% 




Blackstone's House. 



206 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

tractive place the Trimountain, or Tramount, for 
its three hills. 

At first Newtown was chosen for the fortified 
capital of the colony, but the governor and assist- 
ants soon saw that their main seaport, their strong- 
hold, and the seat of their government, should be 
on the harbors and hills of the Tramount peninsula, 
in the centre of the semicircle of settlements on 
the bay. The Company bought the land of Mr. 
Blaxton, and of the Indians. Governor Winthrop 
removed his house from Newtown, and at a Gen- 
eral Court, held September 7, 1630, the town was 
named Boston. Many of the leaders in the colony 
were from Boston, in Lincolnshire, England. To 
make the name doubly dear to them, Mr. Cotton, 
their favorite minister r in Boston, England, came 
three years later to live and preach in Boston, New 
England. 

THE THREE HILLS. 

All the towns were called upon to help build a 
fort at Boston, where all might have protection in 
case of an attack from enemies. A stockade was 
built on what was then called Fort Hill. A 
beacon, to call people from the neighboring towns 
in case of danger, gave the name to Beacon Hill. 
The beacon was a tar-barrel on the end of a tall 



208 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

pole ; when the barrel was set on fire, all the men, 
far and near, knew that they must leave their own 
affairs to defend their new country. Usually a 
man on horseback galloped through one village 
after another to tell the people what was the dan- 
ger, and what the authorities in Boston demanded 
of them. The third hill was called Snow Hill. 

Boston is now a large city ; but it still has 
the names of some of its hills, besides its Tremont 
Street, Shawmut Avenue, and many other re- 
minders of the old times. 

THE FIRST WINTER 

of the great immigration to New England was a 
hard one. Like all new-comers, the colonists suf- 
ered from the cold and the scarcity of good food. 
There was much sickness and many deaths. Some 
were brave and unselfish ; some were lazy and dis- 
contented. In the spring about one hundred of 
the selfish ones went back to England ; "and glad 
were we so to be rid of them," said one of the 
old writers. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 209 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE COLONISTS' WRITINGS. 

You may read in the people's own words why 
they came to Massachusetts Bay, how they fared 
on the long sea voyage, what awaited them, and 
how they lived and loved in the new country. We 
have their letters, pamphlets and books, which 
were written in the colony and sent to friends in 
England. Sometimes these writings were put 
away in the desks of the people who received them, 
and, years after, were found by their children, or, 
perhaps, by their grandchildren. The pamphlets 
were usually printed in some small, dingy printer's 
shop in Massachusetts, or far away in England. 
Swinging from an iron rod over the door, was a 
quaint sign which was mentioned in the odd title- 
pages, such as this one : 

" The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America." 
* * * * * 

Printed by J. D. & R. I., for Stephen Bowtell, at 
the Sign of the Bible, in Pope's Head Alley, in 
1647. 

The early books are so old and musty now that 



210 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

you would not care to look at them, if you did not 
know that they contain stories about the colonies 
that were written by the people who helped to 
plant them. They are written in quaint language 
and spelling ; for at that time people had not 
agreed how words should always be spelled. 

ATTRACTIONS IN MASSACHUSETTS. 

The colonists who were determined to stay, sent 
letters to their friends and old neighbors in Eng- 
land, urging them to come out. They named 
many inducements. They wrote of the fertility of 
the soil, the rank growth of the grass that would 
feed many cattle. "In our plantation," wrote a 
minister, ' ' we have already a quart of milk for a 
penny." " Little children here, by setting of corn, 
may earn much more than their own maintenance." 

The new vegetables and wild flowers delighted 
the English. About Massachusetts Bay were "plen- 
tie of single Damaske Roses verie sweet." In the 
rivers and bay were all kinds of fish, good to eat. 
The bass, the colonists said, was a new fish, "most 
sweet and wholesome." There was an "abound- 
ance of lobsters, that the least boy in the planta- 
tion may both catch and eat what he will of them." 
There were means to make salt to keep the fish for 
winter use, which was most important. "Here 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 211 

are likewise aboundance of Turkies, often killed in 
the Woods, farre greater than our English Turkies 
and exceeding fat, sweet, and fleshy, for here they 
have aboundance of feeding all the yeere long as 
strawberries ; in Summer all places are full of them 
and all manner of Berries and fruits." 

11 Our Pine-trees that are the most plentiful of 
all wood, doth allow us plentie of candles which 
are verie useful in a House, and they are such 
candles as the Indians commonly use, having no 
others. They are nothing else but the wood of 
the Pine-tree cloven in two little slices something 
(or somewhat) thin, which are so full of moysture 
of Turpentine and Pitch that they burn as cleere 
as a Torch." 

Many of the colony's pioneers came with their 
older sons. The wives and younger children re- 
mained in England, until the new homes were 
ready for them. Governor Winthrop came with 
his sons, while Mrs. Winthrop and the younger 
children waited in England. 

GOVERNOR WINTHROP'S LETTER TO HIS WIFE, 

written at Charlestown in July, 1630, says: "I 
shall expect thee next sommer, . . . and by that 
tyme I hope to be provided for thy comfortable 
entertainment. . . . Howsoever our fare be but 




Statue of Governor John Winthrop. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 213 

coarse in respect of what we formerly had (pease 
puddings and fish beinge o r [our] ordinary diet) 
yet God makes it sweet and wholesome to us (so) 
that I may truely say I desire no better. . . . 
I see no cause to repente of o r coming hither and 
thou seest (by o r experience) that Grod can bring 
safe hither even the tenderest women and the 
youngest children. ... Be sure to be warme 
clothed and to have store of fresh provisions, 
eggs putt up in salt . . . butter, ote meale, 
pease and fruits, and a large stronge chest or two, 
well locked, to put these provisions in, and be sure 
they be bestowed in the ship where they may 
be readyly come by. ... Be sure to have 
ready at see 2: or 3: skillets of several! syzes, 
a large fryinge panne, a small stewinge panne, 
and a case to boyle a pudding in. . . . Thou 
must be sure to bringe no more companye than so 
many as shall have full provisions for a yeare and 
a halfe, for though the earth heere be very fertile 
yet there must be tyme and meanes to raise it 
[food] , if we have corne enough we may live plen- 
tifully. The Lords will in due tyme lett us see 
the faces of each other again to o r great com- 
fort. ... I kisse and blesse you all my dear 
children, Forth, Mary, Deane, Sam, and the others. 
Let my sonne provide 12 axes of several sorts of 



214 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

the Braintree Smith . . . whatsoever they coste, 
and some augurs, great and small, and many other 
necessaryes, which I cant now thinke of, as can- 
dles, sope, etc. Once again farewell, my dear wife 
" Thy faithful husband, 

u JO: WlNTHROP." 

Many letters were written by other husbands to 
their wives and carried across the Atlantic by ship 
captains or by friends going "home" on business 
or pleasure. After a few years nearly all the 
pioneer families were reunited. Many had good 
frame or brick houses, happy and comfortable 
with the neighbors they had had in Old England, 
often with the same minister, too. 

MRS. WlNTHROP AND THE CHILDREN 

arrived in November, 1631, in the ship Lyon, which 
brought "in all sixty persons, who all arrived in 
good health, and lost none of their company but 
two children." One of them was little Aim, the 
governor's year and a half old daughter, who had 
died on the sea- voyage. Mrs. Winthrop's landing 
must have been filled with both joy and sorrow: 
joy to see her husband and have the family united 
once more, but sorrow for two who were missing; 
for besides little Ann they had lost a grown up 
son, Henry, who had come out with his father. He 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 215 

was drowned in the harbor of Salem. The recep- 
tion of the colonists must have given her pleasure. 
After firing guns in honor of their landing, 
1 ' divers of the assistants and most of the people of 
the near plantations, came to welcome them, and 
brought and sent for divers days, great store of 
provisions, as fat hogs, kids, venison, poultry, 
geese, partridges, etc., so as the like joy and mani- 
festation of love had never been seen in New Eng- 
land. It was a great marvel that so much people 
and such store of provisions could be gathered 
together at so few hours' warning. " 

The next day was made a day of thanksgiving. 
Besides his Boston house, where the governor 
lived most of his life, he had a country home and 
plantation on the Mystick River, which he called 
Ten-Hills, and still another, called the Garden, on 
Governor's Island in the harbor. The children's 
happiest summers, probably, were passed at the 
Garden. 

BOSTON'S PROSPERITY. 

The capital of the colony grew fast. There was 
work for shop-keepers and mechanics. There were 
fishing and ship-building, and soon the town was 
the centre of a lively trade. Ipswich, Salem, 
Charlestown, Newtown, Dorchester and other towns 
had good harbors, but Boston was the most im- 



216 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

portant. Besides the trade between the different 
settlements of the colony, commerce soon began 
with the other colonies. Some vessels went to the 
Maine fisheries, and others to the New Netherlands, 
to Virginia, and even to the Spaniards of the West 
Indies. 

On the fourth of July, 1631, The Blessing of the 
Bay was launched. This boat was owned by Gov- 
ernor Winthrop and had been built for him on the 
Mystick River near his plantation, Ten-Hills. It 
was known as the pioneer of New England com- 
merce, for it traded in all the colonies of the coast 
up and down the Connecticut River, through the 
Long Island Sound and up the Hudson River also. 
Before many years, trade was carried on with the 
English and Spanish colonies in the Bermuda Is- 
lands and the West Indies. 

The Trial, the first ship built at, Boston, carried 
fish to one of the islands, got wine and sugar there, 
took this cargo to another island and traded for 
cotton and tobacco, or for old iron saved by these 
islanders from vessels wrecked on their coast. This 
iron was used for New England ships. 

FISHERIES AND TRADE. 

When the English merchants heard how trade 
had begun to grow over .here, and that they could 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 217 

get large quantities of salt and dried fish in the 
New England ports, they were more willing to 
send their vessels over with passengers. They 
were sure of a good return cargo, which they could 
sell in the Indies, in Spain or in England. 

The early English expected to make money by 
the fur trade with the Indians, as the French and 
Dutch did. In that trade there were many months 
of idleness for the men it was necessary to keep 
at the factories or stations. The Englishmen could 
waste no time. They soon began to give closer 
attention to the fisheries, and before long the gov- 
ernor and his assistants agreed that ' ' commerce 
beginning in furs had now established itself upon 
the fisheries." Most of the sea-ports of the bay 
became fishing ports. If you go now to Marine- 
head, Gloucester and many old towns on the Mass- 
achusetts coast and to some villages on the Maine 
shore, you can see many things to suggest the fish- 
ing industry of New England two centuries and a 
half ago. 

THE KING'S DISCOVERY. 

Religion was a part of every joy and sorrow, 
every ordinary and extraordinary event of the 
Puritans' lives. The colonists were just beginning 
to enjoy living in freedom when they heard that 



218 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

Archbishop Laud had discovered what they had 
done. From that day on the lives of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay colonists were filled with fear that 
the strong arm of the Church of England would 
stretch across the ocean and harass them, if it did 
not destroy their church and charter, too. 

Laud told the king, of course, what he heard 
that the Puritans were doing, under cover of the 
Massachusetts Bay Company. Charles sent at once 
to the London office for Governor Craddock. The 
answer was that there was no Governor Craddock. 
The governor was in New England. Mr. Crad- 
dock was merely the London business agent of the 
company. His majesty "found, too late, that he 
had eagerly pounced upon a dummy." He then 
issued a royal command for the return of the char- 
ter. But he had not issued the charter to be held 
in any one place, and the leaders of the colony had 
been careful to look up all the points of law con- 
cerning the transfer before they made it. So, when 
his majesty's orders were received, they sent back 
courteous but evasive answers, and kept their 
charter in a safe place. 

In those days, if a king wished to forbid further 
use of privileges he had granted by charter, he 
called for the document, and slashed it with an 
official sword. So, usually, people kept their 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 219 

privileges so long as they could keep their charters 
safe and whole. Every time the order for the Bay 
Company's charter was repeated, these wise lead- 
ers found some excuse for delay. At length 
Charles I. had so many troubles at home to think 
of that he let the colonists alone. They grew 
stronger and more independent every year. 
When Laud's persecutions ceased, few new colo- 
nists left England. The pioneer days were over 
for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but not for the 
people who left the bay to form new colonies. 



220 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE SMALLER COLONIES OP NEW ENGLAND. 
CONNECTICUT. 

The first colony that left the Massachusetts Bay 
was founded by a new set of pioneers, who made 
their way overland to the Connecticut River. These 
colonists were part of the towns and congregations 
of Watertown, Dorchester and Newtown (which, 
you remember, was afterwards called Cambridge). 

These people had been settled in Massachusetts 
only a few years, but they thought the government 
too strict and religious restrictions too narrow. In 
asking permission, however, to remove from Mas- 
sachusetts, the Connecticut pioneers gave as their 
chief reason, that they needed more accommodation 
for their cattle than they could have in their pres- 
ent settlement at Newtown. They urged also that 
the valley of the Connecticut River was rich and 
fruitful ; that the English colonists should settle 
there before the Dutch, who already had one fort 
there. 

Mr. Hooker, the minister of Newtown, went with 
nearly his whole congregation through the woods 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 221 

to make their pioneer settlement. Picture them 
travelling- through a strange country beyond the 
frontiers of Massachusetts, part of the way through 
forests, driving one hundred and sixty cattle for 
which they were searching new pasturage. These 
cattle added their share to the undertaking by 
providing milk for the wanderers. The Newtown 
congregation settled the town of Hartford. The 
Dorchester people founded Windsor. The Water- 
town emigrants made Weathersfield. By the close 
of 1636 there were eight hundred English on the 
Connecticut, They soon united as one* colony, 
under a constitution which they made for them- 
selves. Their government will always be impor- 
tant for two things : because it was the first written 
American constitution and because it was more 
liberal than any government Englishmen had ever 
known. Church membership was not made a re- 
quirement for the political privileges of the town. 
Only the governor need be a church member in 
order to hold the office. The colony prospered ; 
the people began very early to provide their chil- 
dren a good education. The schools, the religious 
toleration combined with a firm, well-established 
government, attracted new settlers, and the River 
Colony grew until it was soon a powerful rival of 
the great Bay Colony. 



222 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

NEW HAVEN. 

The city of New Haven, which is now within the 
boundaries of Connecticut, was begun by a sepa- 
rate colony of Puritans from England. Theoph- 
ilus Eaton, a merchant of London, and John Dav- 
enport, a clergyman, were anxious to leave Eng- 
land to find a place for purer forms of worship. 
They were not satisfied with Massachusetts or any 
of the other colonies. They landed in Boston in 
the autumn of 1637 and stayed there over winter. 
In spite of inducements of the people there, and 
the hesitancy of some of their own party to go into 
a wilder, more unsettled region, the leaders kept to 
their original plan of a new colony. In the spring 
they went down to the shores of Long Island Sound, 
to a place west of the mouth of the Connecticut 
River, where they settled New Haven. 

There, as in Massachusetts, only church mem- 
bers could be voters. The rule in the ordering 
of government was the "Word of God." Mr. 
Davenport was the minister ; Mr. Eaton was the 
governor for twenty years. Meanwhile similar 
settlements, Gruilford, Milford and Stamford had 
grown into towns with laws like those of New 
Haven. They were admitted into a sort of confed- 
eracy or federal government of which New Haven 
was chief. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 223 

Combined with the idea of a settlement where 
pure forms of worship might be established, was 
the plan of making New Haven a commercial col- 
ony. Mr. Eaton, with the instincts of a merchant, 
had this plan in mind when he chose a port on 
the Sound as the site of New Haven. Large 
sums were invested in ships and cargoes, but 
disaster after disaster, one disappointment after 
another, disheartened the hopes of trade and de- 
creased the wealth of many of the merchant col- 
onists. Then trade increased, good luck seemed to 
attend the vessels, and the settlement grew rich. 

PROVIDENCE. 

One of the greatest of the New England pioneers 
was Roger Williams, who founded the city of 
Providence and the colony of Rhode Island about 
the time that the towns from Massachusetts re- 
moved to Connecticut. 

Do you remember that Governor Winthrop's 
wife and little children came over in the Lyon in 
1631 ? Do you remember that there were several 
other passengers ? Among them were Roger 
Williams and his wife. Roger Williams was a 
young man who had been educated for a clergy- 
man and had Puritan views. In Boston he was so 
much respected and admired that the people wanted 



224 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

him at once for the church in that town. But his 
religious beliefs were not just like those of the 
Puritans of Boston, so that he lost friends. Then 
he went to Salem to preach ; then to Plymouth. 
But he soon returned to Salem. By that time 
Mr. Cotton and several of the Boston leaders 
were alarmed at Mr. Williams's views and his influ- 
ence. There were long- debates and a great trial. 
Mr. Williams was warned to keep his views to 
himself, but with all his friends about him, it was 
impossible for him, a minister, not to talk to them. 
He believed that the men of the colony should not 
be shut out of the government if they were not 
church members. He believed also that the King 
of England had no right to give away the In- 
dians' land. These were tilings that seemed 
very important in those days, and Mr. Williams 
was told that he must keep quiet about them or 
leave the colony. He barely escaped arrest by 
going out of Salem secretly in the depths of winter. 
He went to the region of the Narragansett Bay. 
The Indians knew him far and wide because he 
was always a good friend to them and had learned 
their language. Near the head of Narragansett 
Bay, Williams built himself a house. His wife 
and friends joined him, and the colony of Provi- 
dence was established with a government which 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 225 

had nothing to do with any church. PeopLe of all 
religions were made welcome. It was the first 
place in the world where there was absolute relig- 
ious freedom. 

PORTSMOUTH. 

A few years after Williams was banished from 
the Massachusetts colony, others were sent out be- 
cause their views differed from those of Mr. Cotton 
and the other leaders. Among these were Mrs. 
Anne Hutchinson and her followers and Mr. Will- 
iam Coddington who followed Mr. Williams to the 
Narragansett country, and settled on the north 
end of the island called Rhode Island. 

Mr. Coddington was an energetic man, who had 
been quite important in Boston and was known as 
the man who owned the first brick house there. 
He seemed fitted for a leader, and the pioneer set- 
tlements he started were successful. 

The land he bought from the Indian chiefs of 
the Narragansetts, Cannonicus and Miantinomi, 
for forty fathoms of white beads, which .were to 
be equally divided between them. Coddington, in 
behalf of his fellow-purchasers, promised to give 
also " ten coates and twenty howes ?? to the Indian 
inhabitants of the island, to induce them to go 
away from it quietly. In the receipts of the sach- 
ems we find that twenty-three coats and thirteen 



226 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

hoes were given to them instead of the stipulated 
number ; perhaps hoes were more valuable than 
coats to the pioneers beginning to cultivate new 
land. 

The town of Portsmouth was laid out about a 
pond of fresh water. A spot was chosen for the 
"meeting-house," and a piece of land "to lye as 
a common field," for pasturage for the whole 
town. Then they allotted six acres to each of the 
freemen. One freeman was given permission to set 
up a house of entertainment, and given the right 
to brew beer, to sell " wines of strong waters " and 
provisions. Another freeman was allowed to set 
up a bakery, while a third was urged and en- 
couraged to build a water-mill. 

Like all other pioneer settlements, one of its 
earliest problems was how to provide for its de- 
fence. A training band was begun, made up of 
all men over sixteen and less than fifty years of 
age. Every one was summoned to train for a cer- 
tain number of days in the year, or, as they said, 
they " were warned thereto." 

Each inhabitant of the island was to be provided 
always with one musket, one pound of powder, 
twenty bullets and a sword, ready for service. 
They never had much trouble with the Indians, 
who had seemed perfectly satisfied with the price 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 227 

paid for the land and with a few extra gifts, wisely 
made. This first settlement was called Ports- 
mouth. 

NEWPORT. 

In 1639 William Coddington and a part of the 
Portsmouth colonists went to the southwestern end 
of the island , to settle about a good harbor they 
had found there. This town, called Newport, was 
soon fairly started, and a trade begun with other 
colonies. 

You will hear more of it in the period of the 
Revolutionary War. 

Other towns grew up on the mainland round 
about Narragansett Bay. Later they got one com- 
mon charter, as the colony of Rhode Island and 
Providence Plantations. All people were allowed 
freedom of religion there, and they should have 
been happy, because the government tolerated all 
their churches ; but it was an odd, unruly colony. 
Each thought his own church right, and for a long 
time there were constant bickerings and disputes. 
But this trouble passed away, and a good govern- 
ment was established at last. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

The colony of New Hampshire was the result of 
" commercial enterprise in England and religious 



228 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

dissensions in Massachusetts." The land was 
granted to John Mason in 1629 ; he sold it to 
bands of colonists, and got people to come from 
England to reap the benefits of trade. Others came 
from Massachusetts, where their religious beliefs 
made other people uncomfortable and themselves 
unwelcome. At the same time that many of Mrs. 
Anne Hutchinson's followers went to Rhode Island, 
many more went to New Hampshire. Mason spent 
his last years in making an elaborate scheme of gov- 
ernment for his colony, which had so few people in 
it that nearly every person would have had an 
office if the scheme had been put in operation. 
In 1679 Charles II. took the colony into his 
own control, and made it a royal province ; 
and, with the exception of a short interval, about 
the year 1688, it remained a royal province till it 
became an independent state. The towns, settled 
by people from different places, at different times, 
and with different aims, had few interests in com- 
mon. Hence political growth was slow and slight 
in New Hampshire. 

MAINE. 

In 1638 an English traveler, John Josselyn, made 
a trip from Boston along the shores of Maine. He 
said it was "a meer wilderness," with here and 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 229 

there by the sea-side, a few scattered plantations, 
with as few houses." The man who stepped ashore 
must carry a gun, if he did not wish to be de- 
voured by wolves. Gradually these shores were 
dotted with prosperous settlements of fishermen, 
while through the interior of the country fur- 
traders established trading-posts. The people who 
came to settle there were many times servants of 
Englishmen, who owned the lands, but did not 
care to live in Maine. The others were rough and 
poor. 

In 1652 Maine became a part of Massachusetts. 
When the commissioners were sent over in 1665 
they separated the colonies again. This, like other 
parts of their work, was undone as soon as their 
backs were turned. Massachusetts took Maine 
back, and it was a part of the colony and the state 
of Massachusetts until 1820. 



230 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

THE DUTCH OP NEW NETHERLAND. 
1609-1664. 

The Dutch pioneers in America were led by an 
Englishman, Henry Hudson, who was looking for 

a northwest passage to 
China. 

In 1609 the Dutch 
East India Company 
sent the bold Captain 
Hudson in the Half- 
moon to find a northeast 
passage to India beyond 
Norway, through the 
Arctic Ocean. Hudson 
started on this voyage, 
but gave it up on ac- 
He did not go back to Holland, 




( Where New Amsterdam 
M-Manhattan -j was founded 

I New York now stands. 



count of the cold, 
however. 



HUDSON'S SEARCH FOR A WESTERN PASSAGE 
TO INDIA. 

He took a westward course across the Atlantic 
toward the countries of Virginia and New Eng- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 231 

land, of which he had heard from his friend, Cap- 
tain John Smith. His plan was to seek a northwest 
passage to India for the Dutch Company. The 
first land he made was Newfoundland. Then he 
sailed southwestward to Delaware Bay, and en- 
tered it. Next, he sailed northward, to a great 
harbor, from which he entered the river that now 
bears his name. After going up the river till it 
grew shallow, he recrossed the Atlantic, to tell his 
news in Holland. Though he knew that his great 
river was not the passage to China, he told the 
Dutch about the Indians he had seen, and he be- 
lieved that they would supply a large fur- trade. 

The news seemed satisfactory to the Netherland 
merchants who had sent Hudson. Some people 
think that they had given him orders to go to 
America; but to start as if in search of a north- 
east passage, so that neither Spain, France, nor 
England would try to stop him. 

WHAT ATTRACTED THE DUTCH TO AMERICA. 

The Dutch had heard of the Spanish, the French 
and the English trade in the New World. Natur- 
ally, they wanted some for themselves. The Neth- 
erlands had but just thrown off the yoke under 
which Spain had held them for many years. The 
treasure which the Spaniards had taken in South 



232 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

America had enabled them to carry on a long war 
with the Netherlands. The Spaniards wanted to 
control the Dutch trade, and to force the Dutch 
people to remain in the Roman Catholic church. 
The Hollanders, like some of the English called 
Puritans, and of the French, called Huguenots, 
believed that people should be free to worship as 
they chose. At last the Dutch made a mighty 
effort ; and by using all their wealth for seamen 
and ships, and by some of the noblest resistance in 
history, they won their freedom from Spain. When 
that was done, their next care was to find some 
good use for these brave sailors and big ships, and, 
at the same time, to make new fortunes in place of 
those spent in the long wars. By 1609 Spain had 
agreed to a peace ; but there was no telling when 
it might be broken. So, to make themselves 
stronger, and to weaken Spain, the Dutch people 
determined to get a share in the New World. 

With this in mind, you can imagine how pleased 
the Dutch people were when Hudson brought them 
his news. Offers were made by the government 
to men and companies of men who would go out 
to this region to start trading-posts. The Dutch 
have always claimed that they discovered the Hud- 
son, and made the first settlements there; but Yer- 
razano anchored his French Dauphine in the Bay 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 233 

long before that ; and the Spaniards claim that 
their explorers knew the region, and had named 
many places on their maps before Hudson left the 
Netherlands. 

THE ISLAND OF MANHATTAN. 

Spaniards say that they gave the name of Man- 
hattan to the island you are to hear about in this 
story. This long, narrow island at the mouth of 
the Hudson and the East Rivers was seen from the 
first to be important. On the early Dutch maps 
the name was spelt Monados, Manados, or Mana- 
toes. Still later, Manhattoes was the spelling, then 
Manhattan. Some say it is an Indian name. 
There is a Spanish word, monados, which means 
drunken men. Perhaps some Spanish sailors 
landed there and made themselves intoxicated in 
their merrymakings after a long cruise. But the 
Spaniards gave little attention to the North Atlan- 
tic shore. Peter Martyr, one of their writers, 
showed their spirit when he said : " To the South, 
to the South, for the great and exceeding riches; 
. . . they that seek gold must not go to the cold 
and frozen north." 

Manhattan and the Hudson had no gold for the 
Spanish adventurer; but the entire region of the 
Great River teemed with riches for the hardwork- 



234 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

ing Dutch trader. Hudson saw it. Merchants of 
Amsterdam promptly sent men to gather it. They 
sent hardy traders to deal fairly with the Indians, 
and to build up a great trade with them as fast as 
possible. The country was full of natives, who 
would gladly barter large quantities of the skins 
of the otter, beaver, and other fur-bearing animals 
for a few beads and tin cups, or pieces of coarse 
red flannel. These peltries, as they were called, 
sold for gold in Europe. 

THE FIRST DUTCH FACTORIES. 

Trading-stations, called factories, were set up by 
the Dutch soon after Hudson returned — some peo- 
ple say in the next year. At first the Dutch 
thought that the most important place would be 
some distance up the Hudson. Our city of Albany 
was started by one of their trading-houses, built 
in a rough log-cabin fort. Another factory was 
set up on the southern end of Manhattan Island. 
In 1615 a solid block-house of logs was built 
there. 

THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY, 1621. 

This was chartered by the States General of Hol- 
land in 1621, to establish a colony with military 
government, and all rights to trade over all the 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 235 

region they claimed as the New Netherland. That 
region was from what they called the South Bay 
and River (now the Delaware), to what they called 
the Varche, or Fresh River (now the Connecticut). 

The West India Company sent colonists, and 
promised to protect people of all Christian religions. 
Their first large company of settlers were some 
people called Walloons, who came to New Nether- 
land from the southern part of Belgium. 

These Walloons and a few Dutch colonists settled 

on Manhattan, and also on the two opposite shores, 

making the beginning of what are now Brooklyn 

►and Jersey City. Others went up the Hudson to 

Fort Orange, now Albany. 

THE DUTCH COMPANY'S DIRECTORS. 

The governors of the colony were called direc- 
tors. They were what we would call managers. 
They were not always good men. No one staid 
long. The first was Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, who 
has left his name on what we call Cape May, New 
Jersey. 

The second director was Peter Minuit. By his 
time the company had learned the important posi- 
tion of Manhattan Island, and had decided that it 
should be the centre of the government and trade 
of all the New Netherland. So Minuit bought 



236 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

the island from the Indians for abont $24, and 
placed a fort at one end of it. This fort was soon 
the centre of a settlement called New Amsterdam. 
Amsterdam was the name of the chief city in the 
home country which took a great interest in this 
namesake. A letter written by Peter Schagen, a 
citizen of Amsterdam, was sent to the Dutch 
government there, telling them about the growth 
and condition of their colony in the new world, in 
1626. This is what he said : 

' ' High and Mighty Lords : 

"Yesterday arrived here the ship, the Arms of 
Amsterdam, which sailed from New Netherlands 
. . .on the 23d of September. They report that 
our people are in good heart and live in peace 
there. . . . They have purchased the Island of 
Manhattes from the Indians, for the value of sixty 
guilders. . . . They had all their grain sowed 
by the middle of May, and reaped by the middle 
of August. They send thence samples of summer 
grain ; such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, 
canary seed, beans and flax. 

1 ' The cargo of the aforesaid ship is : 
7246 beaver skins 
1784 otter skins 
675 otter skins 
48 minck skins 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 237 

3G wild cat skins 

33 mincks 

34 rat skins 
"Considerable oak timber and hickory. Here- 
with, High and Mighty Lords, be commended to 
the mercy of the Almighty. 

"Your High Mightinesses 7 obedient, 

"P. Schagen. 
"In Amsterdam, Nov. 5, a.d. 1626." 

THE PATROON SYSTEM. 

Such a report as this could not fail to encourage 
merchants to invest in the new trade. The com- 
pany made good offers to men who would take or 
send out over fifty settlers. Many rich men accept- 
ed the offers of patroonships. They were given large 
strips of land, especially along the Hudson River. 
The patroons, as these land-holders were called, 
received not only the land, but large powers of 
government over them and all the people who 
settled upon them, and also rights for extensive 
trade. To take up his patroonship, the patroon sent 
out fifty settlers, under bonds as " servants," in 
much the same way as the great Virginia planters' 
servants were indented. This, of course, increased 
the population of the New Netherland. 

To induce still more people to settle in their 



238 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

province, the Dutch West India Company offered 
other inducements in land and privileges to those 
who would take or send out even five settlers. 

THE GREAT SEAPORT OF THE HUDSON. 

After a few years, the company ordered that all 
the trade of the province, including- that of all the 
patroon estates, should go through the port of New 
Amsterdam. Up to that time Fort Orange had 
perhaps as much business as there was at Manhat- 
tan, but this new order started the growth which 
soon made the great commercial city at the mouth 
of the Hudson. 

The religious liberty and the trade attracted 
people to New Amsterdam from many different 
countries of Europe. The large export business of 
the company and the patroons created need for 
other kinds of trade and gave work to many mer- 
chants, skilled mechanics and laborers. People 
who did not like the strict life of the religious 
colonies of New England also flocked to the liberal 
Dutch colony. Redemptioners from the South, who 
had worked out their " time," or found other ways 
to repay the money spent for their passage, came 
to New Netherland to raise tobacco, as they had 
learned to do in Virginia. 

These people from many places, brought dif- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 239 

ferent languages and different customs to the 
Dutch colony, and especially to the capital. They 
made from the beginning what we call a cosmo- 
politan place — that is, a place tilled with people 
from many countries. In 1643 eighteen languages 
were spoken in New Amsterdam. It was then a 
pretty country village, with shops and docks upon 
the southeasterly end, and mills and ship-yards 
were near them, to the eastward, while the centre 
and westerly part of the island for a mile or so 
above the fort was laid out in tobacco-fields, corn- 
fields and orchards. 



240 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE DUTCH AND THE INDIANS. 

From the first the Indians were friendly to the 
Dutch. The traders began by paying them for 
their furs in the shells made into wampum, which 
was the Indians' money, or in cloth, or in the 
pretty toys the savages liked best. Besides that, 
the Dutch dealt fairly with them in trade and in 
buying their land for settlements. The Hudson 
River Indians, who were powerful tribes, liked the 
Dutch better than they did the French, who had 
settled to the north of them. This was largely be- 
cause the French settlers had taken up the quarrels 
of some of the St. Lawrence tribes, who were 
enemies to the nations of the Hudson and of the 
Great Lakes. 

For many years the Iroquois were the most pow- 
erful enemies of the French Indians, as the Hurons 
and others were called. The Iroquois lived near 
the lakes of Central New York. Since their enemies 
had white friends, the Iroquois would have white 
friends, too ; and they turned with good- will toward 
the Dutch, taking them a large peltry trade, which 



earliest days in America. 241 

the French desired and tried hard to «-et. Yet some 
Indians in New Netherland were not so friendly. 

INDIAN TROUBLES. 

The first troubles the Dutch had were mostly 
with the tribes of the region near what is now Jer- 
sey City. Their hostility spread to the Manhattan 
tribes, and sometimes up the river and among the 
Long Island natives. Each patroon kept the farm- 
ers, tobacco raisers and Indian traders of his estate 
far from any other. Each wanted to extend his own 
influence as much as he could among the Indians 
near his plantation. By treating the Indians as 
friendly and as familiarly as possible, each one tried 
to get more from them than his neighbor could get. 
This made the Indians jealous of each other and of 
the treatment they received from the different Dutch 
traders. The old saying that " familiarity breeds 
contempt," seems to be true in this case. The In- 
dians lost all fear and respect for the Dutch farm- 
ers. When the farmers 7 cows strayed into the 
unfenced fields of corn, planted and owned by the 
Indians on the island, the Indians attacked the set- 
tlers, killing them and burning their houses. The 
farmers then realized how foolish they had been to 
place their houses so far apart that they lost each 
other's protection. Fort Amsterdam had been 



242 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

neglected until it was a poor defense. Many 
thought that the director was to blame for all the 
trouble. Eight colonists formed a sort of com- 
mittee of complaint, and wrote to the home gov- 
ernment : 

" . . . We, poor inhabitants of New Nether- 
lands, were, here in the spring, pursued by these 
wild heathens and barbarous savages witli fire and 
sword ; daily, in our houses and fields, have they 
cruelly murdered men and women, and with hatch- 
ets and tomahawks struck little children dead in 
their parents' arms or before their doors, or carried 
them away into bondage ; the houses and grain 
barracks are burnt, with the produce; cattle of all 
descriptions are slain and destroyed. Such as re- 
main must perish this approaching winter, for the 
want of fodder. 

il Almost every place is abandoned. We, 
wretched people, must skulk, with wives and little 
ones that still survive, in poverty together, in and 
around the fort at the Manahatas, where we are not 
safe, even for an hour. . . . We are all here, from 
the smallest to the greatest, . . . wholly power- 
less. The enemy meets with scarce any resistance. 
The garrison (of the fort) consists of but about 
fifty or sixty soldiers, unprovided with ammuni- 
tion. Fort Amsterdam, utterly defenceless, stands 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 243 

open to the enemy night and day." The eight 
then said that if prompt assistance did not come 
from the Dutch government, they would be ob- 
liged to call in aid from the New England colonies, 
and that the English probably would demand a 
share of the New Netherland trade in return for 
any help. 

The fear of losing the valuable trade of the col- 
ony aroused the government in Holland. It called 
the company to account for this condition of things. 
The company said that the colonists brought much 
of the trouble upon themselves by living so far 
apart, by selling guns to the Indians, by allowing 
" free-traders " — men who did not belong to the 
company — to sail up the Hudson, and trade off 
guns and shot for furs. The company said that 
they were poor, and that they needed the aid of the 
Dutch government to keep the free-traders out of 
the province. If the government would aid them, 
they could promise to make things better for the 
colonists. They sent out instructions to the settlers 
to repair the fort, to live closer together, and to 
treat all the Indians alike. They tried to encour- 
age the raising of tobacco, and told the settlers 
they could buy negroes at a fair price. In spite 
of these promises, the condition of affairs did not 
much improve. The directors, who were sent out 



244 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

from Holland to act as governors, seemed bent on 
having an easy life, and upon making as much 
money for themselves as they could. 

ENGLISH NEIGHBORS. 

The colonists of New England, by this time, 
were gradually spreading out through Connecti- 
cut, toward the New Netherland, and making set- 
tlements on Long Island. A story is told of an 
English ship, which appeared before Fort Amster- 
dam one day. The captain sent an invitation to 
Governor Van T wilier and his officers to come on 
board for a sort of banquet. Van Twiller went, 
and treated the Englishman in a friendly way. 
After staying six or seven days before the fort, the 
Englishman was allowed to go up the river, and 
carried on a large trade with the Indians before 
some of the indignant Dutch traders could induce 
the director to order him out of the river. 

Wouter Yan Twiller proved a poor governor. 
Kieft, his successor, was better in some ways, but 
stirred up the Indians into a revolt that did a great 
deal of harm to the Dutch settlements. Much as 
the Indians disliked Kieft, the Dutch settlers dis- 
liked him more. He treated them harshly, and 
would not allow them to appeal from his decisions 
to the government at home. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 245 

DIRECTOR STUYVESANT, 1647-1664. 

The people of New Netherland put great hopes 
upon the new governor, Peter Stuyvesant. Some 
one wrote home, soon after the arrival of this new 
governor : " Mynheer Stuyvesant introduces here 
a thorough reform." According to Stuyvesant's 
own account, there was need of it. New Amster- 
dam was in a terrible condition. 

"The people are without discipline, and ap- 
proaching the savage state, 77 he wrote. " A. fourth 
part of the city of New Amsterdam consists of 
rumshops and houses where nothing can be had 
but beer and tobacco. 77 Stuyvesant appears to 
have done his best, but that was not enough to save 
the settlement from passing out of the hands of the 
Dutch into those of the English. 

ENGLAND'S CLAIM. 

For many years English people had been look- 
ing on, while the Dutch settlement between New 
England and Virginia grew larger and richer. 
They claimed that the region belonged to England 
by virtue of Cabot 7 s discovery. They were glad to 
see that affairs did not go smoothly under the 
Dutch company, and to hear that the company had 
not money enough to keep up a strong defense of 
the colony. So the English waited for the time 



246 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

when a well-aimed blow from them might strike 
down the Dutch power in New Netherlands, and 
secure the prize for themselves. There were two 
chief reasons why the English wanted the region 
about the Hudson: First, because New Amster- 
dam, the trading settlement at the mouth of 
the Hudson River, commanded one of the finest 
harbors in the world. Second, because, in order 
to carry out certain regulations about their com- 
merce with the colonies, which ordered all of them 
to trade only with English merchants, they felt it 
necessary to close this Dutch market, with its strong 
temptations. 

In 1664, during a war between the English and 
the Dutch in Europe, the English saw that their 
time had come to take possession of ' ' the doorway 
to North America. 7 ' Charles II. gave the whole 
region to his brother, James, Duke of York and 
Albany, and James sent Colonel Nichols across the 
Atlantic, to knock at the doorway, with four ships 
and 420 soldiers. New Amsterdam then had about 
1,500 people, a stone fort and twenty cannon. 
Director Stuyvesant was ready to fight and to lead 
a resistance. But there were no men to follow. 
The colonists were willing to be taken under Eng- 
lish government. So Stuyvesant surrendered with- 
out a fight. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 247 

THE CONOTEST. 1664. 

The duke's lieutenant-governor, Colonel Nichols, 
took possession of all the territory claimed by the 
Dutch as the province of New York. That at first 
included what we call New Jersey. New Amster- 
dam became the town of New York. The fort was 
named Fort James. Fort Orange, on the Hudson, 
was called Albany. Other places received English 
names in the same way. Nothing was done vio- 
lently. Much care was shown for the " Dutch- 
men,' 7 as all but the English in this cosmopolitan 
colony were called. They were still kept in pub- 
lic offices, although in name the government and the 
laws were made English. The every-day language 
and customs of the people were changed but little 
at first. Nichols offered religious freedom and 
every inducement possible to keep the settlers in 
the province and to tempt more to come. Within 
a few years many came from the other colonies and 
from the mother-country. The old towns grew 
rapidly and new ones were planted in many places. 

You have seen the Dutch fur-trading post on 
Manhattan Island grow into a large English town. 
Here is a part of the first description of New York 
that was ever printed in the English language. It 
pictures the town and the whole province as they 
were in 1670, 



248 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



"New York is built mostly of brick and stone, 
and covered with red and black tile, and the land 
being high, it gives at a distance a pleasing aspect 
to the spectators." 



LONG ISLAND. 



Next to Manhattan Island, the most import- 
ant part of New York was Long Island. An old 
writer said : 

" Long Island, the west end of which lies south- 




New Amsterdam in 1673. 

ward of New York, runs eastward above one hun- 
dred miles and is in some places eight, in some 
twelve, in some fourteen miles broad. It is in- 
habited from one end to the other. On the west 
end are four or five Dutch towns, the rest being 
all English, to the number of twelve, besides vil- 
lages and farm houses. The island is most of it of 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 



249 



a very good soil, and very natural for all sorts of 
English grain, which they sow and have very good 
increase of, besides all other fruits and herbs com- 
mon in England, as also tobacco, hemp, flax, pump- 
kins and melons. The fruits natural to the island 
are mulberries, persimmons, grapes great and 
small, huckleberries, cranberries, plums of several 
sorts, raspberries and strawberries, of which last 
is such abundance in June that the fields and 
woods are dyed red. . . . The island is plenti- 




New Amsterdam in 1673. 



fully stored with all sorts of English cattle, horses, 
hogs, sheep, goats, . . . which they can both 
raise and maintain by reason of the large and 
spacious meadows or marshes wherewith it is fur- 
nished ; the island likewise producing excellent 
English grass, which they sometimes mow twice 
a year." 



250 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

Such an island as this was naturally attractive to 
the English people in the Connecticut colonies as 
well as to those in New York near its western end. 
Vessels from New York sailed through Long 
Island Sound on their way to New England, to 
trade. Ships from Boston and other Massachusetts 
ports sailed through the same sound to trade along 
the banks of the Hudson River. This brought 
about business and social ties between Boston 
and New York, even while it was New Am- 
sterdam. 

RETURN TO DUTCH RULE, 1673-1674. 

The English rule was broken for about a year, 
when, in the war of England and Holland, it was 
taken by a Dutch admiral in 1673. You can see 
by the picture how large the seaport on Manhattan 
had grown by that time. 

Peace was declared before Holland knew that 
the province had been retaken, and in the treaty 
the Dutch government yielded to England all 
claims in North America. The Dutch had done 
all the pioneering for New York. Even the im- 
portant relations with Indians were made success- 
ful largely by following the best policy of the 
early Dutchmen. 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 251 

NEW JERSEY AND DELAWARE. 

What we know as New Jersey and Delaware 
were settled by Dutch people, Swedes and Eng- 
lish Quakers. To the land in Delaware and the 
advantages of the Delaware River and Bay, both 
the Dutch and English made claims. The Dutch 
met with success until they were overshadowed 
by the Swedish colonists who came to make a new 
Sweden in America. Prosperous towns of thrifty, 
contented Swedes were growing up, when the 
Dutch, gathering force once more, overthrew their 
settlements. Then with New Amsterdam and 
New Netherlands, this region passed into the con- 
trol of the Duke of York. In 1682 Penn secured 
a grant of it, and after that it was known as the 
"lower counties" of Pennsylvania until 1703. 
Then Delaware became a separate, though small 
and unimportant, colony. 



252 



INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE PROVINCE OF PENN'S WOODS. 

" Philadelphia is at last laid out, to the gen- 
eral content of those here." These words were 
in a letter written in 1683 to Quakers in England 

by William Penn. 

You know that 
Philadelphia is a 
large city in the 
southeastern part of 
Pennsylvania. I 
wonder if you have 
ever heard it called 
the Quaker City. 
Its settlers were members of the Society of Friends, 
who were commonly called Quakers. First, you 
will want to know who they were, and what their 
name meant. You remember that the Pilgrims 
who came to Plymouth, and the Puritans who 
came to Massachusetts Bay, were people who were 
not satisfied with the Church of England. They 
wanted simpler forms and more preaching. The 
Quakers were English people who wanted still 




EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 253 

more simple life, with peace and good will to- 
ward everyone. Some of their manners growing 
out of these ideas, seemed very odd to the rest of 
the world. In England thev were so disliked that 
the Quakers were persecuted even more than any 
of the Puritans had been. They had a very hard 
time ; but they were often saved from much harder 
times by a certain young man of whom Charles II. 
was fond, and whose father was the famous Ad- 
miral Perm. You all know his name — William 
Penn. He had many friends at the royal court, 
but handsome young Penn did not care for the gay 
life he might lead with these friends nearly so 
much as he cared to work for the Quakers and 
their belief. 

THE aiJAKER BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS. 

Quakers believed that a person's ability to preach 
came not alone through education, but as a direct 
gift from God ; and they felt that a power which 
came so freely ought to be given freely. So they 
had no regular and paid minister ; every man or 
woman who attended a Quaker meeting might have 
words to speak. When they gathered all were 
quiet until some one felt moved to give a special 
message. Sometimes the silence was broken by 
earnest, strong appeals ; at other times the silence 



254 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

was unbroken, yet they felt all had been worship- 
ing in the true way. 

In England often their meetings were inter- 
rupted by the entrance of government officers, who 
arrested their leaders, and sometimes all the peo- 
ple there. 

George Fox, the first Quaker in England, and 
one who had many followers, was jeered at, and 
beaten by cruel mobs. " Reviled as a fanatic, and 
denounced as an impostor, yet he traveled from 
place to place, sometimes driven forth to sleep 
under haystacks ; sometimes imprisoned as a dis- 
turber of the peace." Penn was arrested in the 
same way. 

The Quakers could be recognized everywhere by 
their simplicity in dress. The men refused to lift 
their hats to anyone whom they met. They said 
God had created all men equal, and they would 
remove their hats only in their meeting-houses, in 
God's presence. 

To carry out many of their beliefs, Quakers 
were obliged to break laws, and to seem disre- 
spectful to men in authority. In holding their 
meetings they broke the same laws as the Pil- 
grims. They refused to take any oaths to support 
the government, or the king, because the Bible 
says, " swear not at all." 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 255 

They would not take off their hats, even in the 
presence of the king. They felt there ought to be 
no paid ministers, and so they refused to pay taxes 
for the support of the English Church. In these 
ways they seemed to be disobedient and disre- 
spectful, and their enemies had a chance to accuse 
them of other beliefs and evil designs. 

These beliefs would not do any harm, or cause 
any uneasiness, in a state where all felt and acted 
alike. For that reason George Fox and William 
Penn spent much thought and time to establish a 
new home for the Friends of all the world. Some 
Quakers had already gone to the different colo- 
nies in the New World — to New England, where 
they were treated harshly in Massachusetts, but 
welcomed in Rhode Island. Others made settle- 
ments of their own near the Puritans and Church- 
men in the colony of East Jersey. Still others 
started a colony of their own in West Jersey, near 
the Swedes and Dutch of the Delaware. 

WILLIAM PENN. 

Penn was interested in all of these settlements ; 
but, after a time, he asked his friend, King Charles 
II., for a grant of land in America, to pay a debt 
due his father, Admiral Penn. This he wanted for 
a large colony, to be entirely settled and governed 



256 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

by Friends. It was to be a refuge for the perse- 
cuted Quakers from all parts of Europe. The king 
gave the grant in 1681. He named the great 
wooded tract Pennsylvania, or Perm's forest. Wil- 
liam Perm wished another name, but his majesty 
insisted, because, he said, of his great admiration 
for Admiral Penn. 

"After many waitings and watchings/ 1 William 
wrote to a friend, " this day my country was con- 
firmed to me under the ^reat seal of England. 
. . . Thou mayst communicate my grant to 
friends, and expect shortly my proposals." 

Besides being an earnest Friend, ready and able 
to preach and write, William Penn was a careful 
business man. He deserved the title of a "Thrifty 
Gentleman of Pennsylvania." The land that had 
thus been given him in place of the money owed 
his father was to be his means of livelihood as well 
as a home for the Quakers. The proposals which 
he mentioned in the letter were about the terms on 
which land might be bought and occupied. He 
naturally felt that he must have some money re- 
turn for his land. He offered 100 acres for £2 
($10) and a small yearly rent to be paid to him as 
proprietor, after the settlers were well established 
in their new homes. Meanwhile they must pay 
a fair price to any Indians who were in posses- 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 257 

sion of the particular acres they wanted. From 
the first Penn treated the Indians fairly and be- 
came stanch friends with them. This was espe- 
cially wise for the Quakers, for they did not believe 
in fighting, and would have been wholly unpro- 
tected and in danger if the Indians had been their 
enemies. The settlers who came out from Eng- 
land to take up land in Pennsylvania carried out 
Penn's instructions to make fair purchases from the 
Indians. Here is the account of a sale which 
gives you an idea of the prices paid. " Christian, 
the Indian, lord and owner of all the land between 
St. Jones and Duck Creek ?7 sold and gave up claim 
"to John Brinkloe, planter, 600 acres woodland 
together with the marshes and creek." The pay 
was ten bottles of drink, four double handfuls of 
powder and four of shot and three match-coats — 
coats made of coarse goods called match-cloth. 

A great emigration to Pennsylvania began in 
1G81. Most of the people were Quakers. Besides 
English people there were Swedes, Finns, Dutch, 
Scotch-Irish and Germans. These made many new 
settlements. Some of the newcomers joined settle- 
ments that had already been begun before the 
land was given to Penn. The principal settlement 
was Philadelphia, the "Quaker City," which Penn 
planned. 



258 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

PHILADELPHIA. 

Perm did not go out to Pennsylvania in 1681, but 
sent his instructions over by men called commis- 
sioners. In these orders Penn told the men to 
have the rivers and creeks sounded, and the shores 
explored in order to find a place high, dry and 
healthy with a good harbor. On this place there 
was to be built "a great town," Philadelphia. The 
streets were to be laid out in a regular way from 
the water's edge back into the country. Many of 
these streets were to be named for trees common in 
the country, such as Chestnut, Walnut and Spruce. 
From the very first a market place was provided 
for; "let the place for the store-house be on the 
middle of the key (quay), which will serve for 
market and store-house too." Anions the instruc- 
tions was this one about Penn's own house. "Pitch 
upon the very middle of the plot where the town 
or line of houses is to be laid . . . facing the har- 
bor and great river for the situation of my house; 
yet let it not be one tenth part." One tenth was the 
amount he was allowed to have in common with 
others, but he said that a thirtieth part would do. 
Room was to be left about the houses for gardens 
and orchards, so as to add beauty to the town. 

When William Penn came in the ship Welcome 
in 1682, he found the site chosen for Philadelphia 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 259 

on the narrow peninsula, between the Delaware 
and Schuykill Rivers. Look for it in the geography, 
and get from a guide-book a map of the city 
of Philadelphia. That will show you how the 
streets run down to the river bank. After Penn's 
arrival preparations went on rapidly. The laws 
made for all the settlements were so just and favor- 
able that many more people were attracted to 
Pennsylvania, and of these many settled in Phila- 
delphia. " In three years from its founding Phila- 
delphia had gained more than New York City had 
done in half a century." In the year of Penn's 
arrival, and during the two following years, ships 
with immigrants arrived from London, Bristol, 
Ireland, Wales, Holland and Germany ; for the 
"good news spread abroad that William Penn, the 
Quaker, had opened an asylum to the good and 
the oppressed of every nation." 

Penn himself sent the praise of his country back 
to Europe. "The air, 7 ' he said, "is sweet and 
clear, the heavens serene like the south parts of 
France, rarely overcast." He described the natural 
products of the country, especially the trees, valu- 
able both for wood and fruit. "The fruits that I 
find in the woods are white and black mulberry, 
chestnut, walnut, plumbs and strawberries, cran- 
berries, hurtleberries, and grapes of divers sortes," 



260 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

"Here also are peaches, and very good and in 
great quantities; not an Indian plantation without 
them, but whether naturally here at first I know 
not; however, one may have bushels for little." He 
told them that farming and care enabled them to 
raise in this new country "wheat, barley, oats, 
rye, pease, beans, squashes, pumpkins, watermelons 
and all herbs and roots that our gardens in Eng- 
land usually bring forth.'' Of the fowl to be found 
in Pennsylvania, what most impressed Perm were 
the wild turkeys, which he said were forty and fifty 
pounds in weight. Of fish, the oysters pleased him 
especially, for he said some were six inches long. 

Among the colonists who came in response to 
Penn's inducements were men of many trades and 
professions, but most of them were farmers, trades- 
men or mechanics. Some of them were scholars 
who had studied at college, but most were men of 
little education. These Were all interested in 
having their children taught, and the schools in 
Philadelphia were good even in the earliest years. 
One of the studies in each school was the laws of 
the colony. 

DEALINGS WITH THE NATIVES. 

The Indians especially felt themselves so well 
treated that they gave no cause for alarm. They 



EARLIEST DAYS IN AMERICA. 201 

showed, on the other hand, positive and frequent 
signs of friendliness. The settlers always bought 
their land fairly, and dealt seriously with them. 
Penn said, in warning the colonists against offend- 
ing the Indians, "Be grave ; they love not to be 
smiled upon." The Iroquois Indians called Penn 
Onas, and the Dela wares called him Miquon. Both 
of these names mean quill or pen, so you see they 
merely translated his name into their own lan- 
guage. Perhaps the name seemed even more full 
of meaning to them because he had written letters 
to them and they had seen him sign treaties with 
their chiefs. 

PENN'S TROUBLES. 

William Penn's life, however, did not continue 
peaceful or prosperous. He had shown business 
skill and thrift as well as generosity in disposing 
of his land. When the rents became due the people 
did not act as generously or honestly, for they re- 
fused to pay them. His presence was needed in 
England, where even more serious enemies were 
working against him. His position as proprietor 
of Pennsylvania became an extremely difficult one. 
Once more he left his affairs in the colony to a 
commissioner or agent and went back to England. 
One letter to this agent reads: " Use thy utmost 



262 INDIANS AND PIONEERS. 

endeavors in the first place to receive all that is 
due to me. Get in quit-rents, and sell land accord- 
ing to my instructions ; look carefully after all fines 
. . . that shall belong to me as proprietor and 
chief governor. Penn had need of this money, 
for as he said ' ' Pennsylvania has been a dear 
Pennsylvania to me all over." 

In 1688 the people of Philadelphia were filled 
with a groundless fear of an Indian outbreak, 
and they used the occasion to add to the feeling in 
England against Penn as proprietor and governor. 
So in 1692 the government was taken from Penn, 
and his colony was made a royal province. 

The land still unsold remained in the hands of 
Penn, and later his family received money from 
its sale. Yet when Penn himself died, in 1718, he 
was almost bankrupt. Though his last days were 
sad, he had left behind him a beautiful, great city 
which was to be very important, not only in the 
history of his colony but of all the colonies during 
the years of the Revolutionary war period. But 
that was long after the pioneer days were passed. 



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humor." — Mail and Express, N. Y. 

" The story is told with a rush and whirl that takes the reader off his feet. 
Bushy is a fine character."— Detro it Free Press. 

" The book is intensely exciting from start to finish." — Boston Herald. 

" With all her reality, Bushy's cleverness is phenomenal."— Prov. Journal. 

"It is full of romantic elements. Her character is developed by her sur- 
roundings." — Philadelphia Call. 

" Bushy is a prodigy of feminine courage."— St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 

" Bushy has met with a most cordial reception in every section. Everyone 
who reads it recommends it with enthusiasm. The book is, indeed, fascinat- 
ing."— New York Commercial Advertiser. 

" It is an entertaining story, full of life and movement and dash, and reveal- 
ing the fine, womanly qualities of the author."— Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

"The work is well written and the situations throughout are decidedly 
strong, and the tale is evenly balanced." — Pittsburg Press. 

" Bushy is rich in character and full of pathos."— Chicago Evening Post. 



«».A BOOK! FOR EJVE^RYOIVlJSa., 

MANHATTAN: 

HISTORIC and ARTISTIC. 

BY 

WESTOVER ALDEN. 



An Historical Summary and Guide of 
Greater New York. 

Beautifully illustrated with half-tone plates 
of all principal points of interest. 

Chronological Sketches from 1524 to 1897. 

General History — Social Development. 

Condensed Charter. Maps, etc. 

Every non-resident, as well as resident, 
should have a copy of this useful book. 



275 ipagee, Clotb, 50 Cents. 

For sale by all Booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price. 



THE MORSE COMPANY...PUBLISHERS, 

MAIN OFFICE: 96 FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK. 

CHICAGO: FISHER BUILDING. BOSTON: 36 BROMFIELP ST. 



THE BOOK OF LIES BY 
JOHN LANGDON HEATON 

Author of " THE QUILTING BEE," etc., etc. 

WITH MANY PICTURES 
FROM PEN DRAWINGS 
BY FRANK VERBECK oe 



ft book of pure, keen American humor, 
of real literary merit «*««*««« 

ft little nonsense now and then, " Rumor, the fountain of youth." 

Ts relished by the wisest men." Read, laugh and keep young. 



Clotb, * * * 50 Cents. 

For sale by all Booksellers, or sent prepaid, on receipt of price. 



PRESS NOTICES. 

" A touch of sentiment, plenty of wholesome humor, and more 
art than is apparent in its smooth construction, go to make up this 
dainty little narrative." — Philadelphia Call. 

" These are certainly fictions of the frank and open order, told 
with a breeziness and abandon that are refreshing. They are in- 
genious and mirthful, and if he who makes us laugh is a public 
benefactor, Mr. Heaton must be ranked as such." — Detroit Free 
Press. 



THE MORSE COMPANY...PTJBLISHERS, 

MAIN OFFICE: 96 FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK. 

CHICAGO: FISHER BUILDING, BOSTON: 36 BROMFIELD ST. 



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